Stop Writing Literature, You Garrulous Indian

for Eric Mottram (1924 - 1995)* a life of toil for the man in the centre a hub in the peripheral tireless wheel where he go then where he go this working man he go on waking people working at waking man no words cling now no words meant in blame the tongue he lash the words they now tame no shock of blast open laughter rock the hall everyman there say there sure were a man a man no fear cowed in communion to other made for no gods made for no demons either all men he know best when he see just once no second thought resurrect the man if bad so go tell the magi no trek in sight in sky here a man be born here he so sure die other no like see one so bright stand up high other no like feel like sky fall low into ocean what make ‘m i say with feeling so just is sure he different he force hisself work work work work work an’ again work he work nite an’ nite so 50-hour in day where he go then where he go this working man he go on waking people working at waking man where you go from word born here now turn and twist all whoring the alphabet ‘don’t write anything you can get published’ so publish only what you can’t call your own writing like reading’s a public coital act so showing your work is exhibitionism ‘why don’t you send your stuff around keeping it to yourself’s sheer masturbation’ reading-watching-listening’s just voyeurism so sending wares around is prostitutionism where he go then where he go this working man he go on waking people working at waking man he it was in minesweeper capture aurora borealis message from extrasensory enter into he word in Bengal waters alone he hear No-man cry only in deepdown psyche water drip drip dry then on land he no see reason to the fight so he let he wrists spill he guts to the fill then he take the world on all by he torn self he spare no skin in dug-Malayan-jungle-out what he do what he think he do he no tell everybody meet man an’ no see albatross hang he no tell story like ol’ mariner in dream he go wake people from dumb dead trance many many people high up no like this act some call him stuckup other just ‘im damn is all he do then what kind of working this is big work man ‘cause most body dead sleep where he go then where he go this working man he go on waking people working at waking man * The late Eric N. W. Mottram, made Chair Professor of English and American Literature at King's College, University of London, in 1983, was appointed Lecturer in American Literature - the first such appointment - in the University of London. By then he had already taught English literature in Zurich, Singapore, and Groningen. He obtained a Double First in English Tripos at Cambridge University after serving out the Second World War (in the North Sea and the Bay of Bengal) on a mine-sweeper. He edited 22 issues of the Poetry Review in the seventies, the organ of the Poetry Society in England. He published some 35 books of poems and some fifteen books of criticism and was the recepient of the American Learned Society's Award for 1965. He also taught at Northwestern University and in New York University at Buffalo. In 1994-1995, he was recommended for the Nobel Prize in Literature, but he passed away on January 16, 1995 while a E-meritus Professor at London University. © T. Wignesan 13-15 October 1995. Pub. in "Radical Poetics (Inventory of Possibilities)", London, 1997.