Villa Anamaria is an ornate Art Nouveau-style villa in Pefkos, on the Greek island of Rhodes. It is at the end of a beach road overlooking Askeftos Bay. The villa used to belong to Pink Floyd guitarist, David Gilmour, who sold it to an Italian couple several years ago.
Villa Anamaria 1990
On Pefkos maps, Villa Anamaria is still referred to as the ‘Pink Floyd Villa’.
It has been on the market for nearly five years, and is currently valued at 1.1 million Euros. So far, no one has offered to buy it, and Villa Anamaria is gradually beginning to look like an unloved, derelict building.
No Echoes
Once, Villa Anamaria, an ornate house
above a rocky, remote Rhodian bay,
was neat, discrete, resplendent in hot sun,
with turquoise wrought-iron gates and walled garden,
Even the most cursory glance will reveal some fundamental differences between the above two poems. Graves’ rewrite came about due to a number of flaws he felt existed in Blake’s poem. He writes of these in ‘Tyger, Tyger’, an essay collected in The Crane Bag and Other Disputed Subjects. In the essay, Graves is particularly scathing of Blake’s tendency to mix his tenses, remain ‘imprecise and ambiguous’, ‘grammatically incoherent’ and to not care about the rhetorical focus of the poem.
More importantly, however, Graves neglects at any time to mention that he has ‘made his own arrangement of The Tyger’. After interviewing Graves, Christopher Burstall claims that Graves’ ‘arrangement’ includes ‘cutting out two verses and putting the whole poem in the past tense’, so that it is grammatically correct and more structurally cohesive. Read more…
A Collaboration of Unlike Minds: Robert Graves’ and William Blake’s The Tyger
Voodoo Excess, Jeremy Reed’s latest collection, is a history of the Rolling Stones in verse, prose and prose-poetry.
In Voodoo Excess, Jeremy Reed chronicles the Stones’ progress from the early days at the Crawdaddy Club in 1962 to the fiftieth anniversary in 2012; he explicates Mick Jagger’s dance steps and his accent; he examines the Rolling Stones’ logo; and the different ways Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood angle their cigarettes; he describes the emotional impact of the Stones’ Hyde Park performance; he details the Redlands bust and the anti-establishment stance and attitude of the band; and he looks unflinchingly at the violence of Altamont and the inevitable death of the summer of love.
Voodoo Excess is far more than a Rolling Stones biography and it is far more than a collection of Rolling Stones-themed poems and prose-poems – what Jeremy Reed has achieved with Voodoo Excess is to provide an incredibly in-depth, up-close and intimate chronicle of the life and times of a group of musicians who have – for fifty years – collectively and individually continued to define the term ‘rock and roll rebels’.
Product details:
Title: Voodoo Excess
Author: Jeremy Reed
Format: Paperback
Pages: 224 pages
Publisher: Enitharmon Press
Published: 12 June 2015
ISBN-10: 1907587500
ISBN-13: 978-1907587504
Contents
INTRODUCTION: The Rolling Stones and Jeremy Reed (by R J Dent)
PART 1 – THE GREATEST ROCK AND ROLL BAND IN THE WORLD
Bookbuster is a wonderful book shop in Hastings that is open 7 days a week.
The proprietor of Bookbuster is Tim Barton, a St. Leonards-based cultural entrepreneur with many years experience in the book trade.
Tim has opened his cheekily-named bookshop, Bookbuster, in premises formerly occupied by a gone-bust Blockbuster DVD rental store.
Tim believes in bookshops and what bookshops offer customers: “I don’t think you can beat a physical bookstore, where you are free to browse,” he says.
Bookbuster is generating a lot of interest among book-lovers. Tim says: “The fact that there has been so much interest so far is fantastic.”
Although the shelves offer many new titles, the shop has an extensive and eclectic range of books that seem to appeal to all ages and interests.
With new stock arriving daily, a calendar full of author signings, readings, poetry slams and other literary events, and an ambient soundtrack playing to ensure customers linger longer, Bookbuster is proving to be a valuable business that gives a great deal to the Hastings reading community.
There is also a significant second-hand book section that – along with a selection with some well-chosen perennial titles – offers collectors the chance to obtain copies of rare editions and signed delights from Iain Sinclair, the late Iain Banks and Tom Sharpe, amongst others.
BookBuster is an independent bookshop in Queen’s Road, Hastings. There is a huge range of stock. Bookbuster is full of literary treasures and, because of Tim Barton’s depth of knowledge regarding authors and books of every type and genre, the shop is something of a cultural oasis. It is very good news for Hastings and for book-lovers and bibliophiles.
BookBuster is at 39 Queen’s Road, Hastings. Opening hours: 9.30am-5.30pm Monday to Saturday; 11-5 Sundays.
There are author readings, author signings, lectures, poetry readings and live music at BookBuster throughout the year.
Michael Baldwin grew up in Gravesend and Meopham, and was educated in the local Grammar school and then Oxford, followed by service in the Coast Artillery Regiment of the Thames and Medway estuary. Many of his published stories and poems are based in the Medway area of Kent.
Before becoming a full-time writer, Michael Baldwin worked as a teacher, university lecturer and broadcaster. He has written for radio, stage and film; and his Thames TV series Writer’s Workshop won a Rediffusion Prize as well as awards at many international festivals. His verse play, All American Bust was performed at the Royal Court Theatre.
A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and former chairman of the Arvon Foundation at Lumb Bank, Michael Baldwin gained a Japan award for his work in documentary television, and a Cholmondeley Award for his volume of poetry King Horn, a collection written by Michael Baldwin during the years he lived in the south of France.
He has judged national and international writing competitions and was for many years a judge of the Daily Mirror/W H Smith Young Writers Competition.
Michael Baldwin has taught creative writing at the Arvon Foundation, Fen Farm, Las Cabanes, the University of North Carolina, and at Skyros. He was Head of English and Drama at Whitelands College, Putney, and a Principal Lecturer at the Roehampton Institute.
Michael Baldwin is the author of twelve novels, including: There’s a War On, Miraclejack, The Rape of OC, Exit Wounds, Holofernes, Dark Lady and The First Mrs Wordsworth.
His volumes of autobiography include Grandad with Snails and In Step with a Goat.
Michael Baldwin is also the author of several short story collections, a number of non-fiction works, and several volumes of prize-winning poetry, including Buried God, Hob and Other Poems, King Horn and Death on a Live Wire.
In order to give an indication of the power of Michael Baldwin’s poetry, here is Death on a Live Wire:
Note from R J Dent: ‘Here’s the complete poem Social Study copied from Here Today, the anthology edited by Ted Hughes. It is in two collections by Michael Baldwin: How Chas. Egget Lost His way in a Creation Myth and Buried God. I’ve transcribed it exactly, taking care over every detail, including the punctuation. The above is exactly as MB wrote it. I’ve included it here as many people have searched for Social Study and have been unable to find it. Along with Death on a Live Wire, Social Study is regarded by many as one of Michael Baldwin’s finest poems.’
The final words are from Michael Baldwin:
‘In the past reviewers have found my work violent. All I can say is that it must be. The world is.’
Jeremy Reed is one of the UK’s most prolific and skilful poets, yet he remains unknown to a great many readers. For some reason, Jeremy Reed’s work is often overlooked or ignored in favour of the work of far less talented writers.
Jeremy Reed
Jeremy Reed has written a vast number of poetry collections, novels, short stories and non-fiction works. His music biographies include studies of Lou Reed, Scott Walker, Brian Jones and Marc Almond. His literary biographies include studies of Rimbaud, Genet and Anna Kaven, amongst others.
He is a translator of great subtlety and versatility. He has translated key texts by Novalis; Rimbaud; Bogary; Genet; Cocteau; Montale – to name only a few.
Reed’s poetry is some of the most beautiful and insightful poetry ever written, particularly the collections: Patron Saint of Eyeliner; Red-Haired Android; Kicks; Voodoo Excess, West End Survival Kit, and This Is How You Disappear.
If you are unfamiliar with Jeremy Reed’s poetry, then start with a copy of Kicks or Patron Saint of Eyeliner.
If you want to start with his fiction, then try reading his novel Diamond Nebula, or even Dorian, his sequel (of sorts) to Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Grey.
If you prefer non-fiction, then A Stranger on Earth – The Life and Work of Anna Kavan is a good place to start, as is Lou Reed: Waiting For the Man. Also worth looking at is Another Tear Falls – A Biography of Scott Walker; Born To Lose – A Biography of Jean Genet; and Delirium – An Interpretation of Arthur Rimbaud.
Here is a partial bibliography:
NOVELS:
The Lipstick Boys
Blue Rock
Red Eclipse
Inhabiting Shadows
Isidore (a novel about Lautréamont)
Red Hot Lipstick (erotic stories)
When the Whip Comes Down (a novel about De Sade)
The Pleasure Chateau (an erotic trilogy)
Chasing Black Rainbows (a novel about Artaud)
Diamond Nebula
Dorian (a sequel to The Picture of Dorian Grey)
Boy Caesar
The Grid
Here Comes the Nice
POETRY:
Target
A Long Shot to Heaven
The Isthmus of Samuel Greenberg (1976)
Saints & Psychotics
Bleecker Street (1980)
A Man Afraid
By the Fisheries (1984)
Nero (1985)
Selected Poems (1987)
Engaging Form (1988)
Nineties (1990)
Brigitte’s Blue Heart
Claudia Schiffer’s Red Shoes
Turkish Delight
Red Haired Android (1992)
Kicks (1994)
Sweet Sister Lyric (1996)
Saint Billie (2000)
Black Sugar
Patron Saint of Eyeliner (2000)
Dicing For Pearls
Heartbreak Hotel (2002)
Duck and Sally Inside (2006)
Orange Sunshine (2006)
This is How You Disappear (2007)
Bona Drag (2009)
West End Survival Kit (2009)
Black Russian: Out-Takes 1978-9 (2010)
Piccadilly Bongo (2010)
Bona Vada (2011)
Whitehall Jackals (with Chris McCabe) (2013)
Nothing But a Star (2013)
The Glamour Poet Versus Francis Bacon (2014)
Sooner or Later Frank (2015)
Voodoo Excess (Rolling with the Stones) (2015)
Red Light Blues (2016)
TRANSLATIONS:
The Coastguard’s House (Eugenio Montale)
Tempest of Stars (Jean Cocteau)
The Complete Poems (Jean Genet)
Praries of Fever (Ibrahim Nasrallah)
All That’s Left to You (Ghassan Kanafani)
On Entering the Sea (Nizar Qabbani)
The Sheltered Quarter (Hamza Bogary)
Hymn to the Night (Novalis)
NON-FICTION
Heart on my Sleeve
Madness: The Price of Poetry
Angels, Divas and Blacklisted Heroes
Caligula – Divine Carnage (with Stephen Barber)
Dead Brides (Edgar Allan Poe) – Introduction
Through the Looking-Glass (Lewis Carroll) – Introduction
The Songs of Maldoror (Lautreamont) – Postscript
Lipstick, Sex and Poetry (autobiography)
Bitter Blue (autobiography)
4 Poets & A Play (John Ashbery, Thom Gunn, John Weiners, Francis Bacon) (2012)
The Dilly – A History of Piccadilly Rent Boys (2014)
POETRY/PHOTOGRAPHY
Pop Stars (1995) – with Mick Rock
Big Orange Day (2010) – with Lisa Wilkerson
Exploding into Colour (2012) – with Lisa Wilkerson
BIOGRAPHIES:
The Last Star (Marc Almond
Another Tear Falls (Scott Walker)
Waiting For the Man (Lou Reed)
The Last Decadent (Brian Jones)
Born to Lose (Jean Genet)
Delirium (Arthur Rimbaud)
A Stranger on Earth (Anna Kavan)
The King of Carnaby Street (John Stephen)
Jeremy Reed collaborates with musician/dj/electronica maestro Itchy Ear on a performance poetry/music/spoken word project called The Ginger Light.
I would recommend listening to The Ginger Light or reading one of the above books. Jeremy Reed is a unique voice in literature. His work seems to be a fusion of the decadent, the erotic and the surreal. He is definitely worth reading.
R J Dent 
