Interview: U.V. Ray

by Sean McGahey

If I weren’t talking to you right now I’d be …

 

Stuffing a snooker ball in John Cooper Clarke’s mouth and gaffer-taping it shut so he can’t spout any more of his dribblings. Poetically speaking I rank him alongside Pam Ayers. The poetry is the same hotch-potch of puerile observations arranged in a series of plodding, predictable couplets that some people find clever. In fact I suspect those two are one and the same person. It’s probably just a quick change of wigs between performances. But in whichever guise, it is of paramount importance that this man be stopped; he’s already inflicted incalculable damage.

 

The most surprising thing that ever happened to me was …

 

Discovering I was straight. For many years I lived a lie; flouncing around all the bars in town wearing silk scarves and velvet britches, drinking Babychams. I was pretending to be like everyone else just to fit into a society that abhors those who display any kind of deviation from what is considered normal.  It was a bombshell when I finally came out of the closet and admitted I was a straight man. My parents hit the roof and kicked me out the family home. To this day they have disowned me as their son and when I go out shopping I am chased by gangs of moronic skinheads who throw rocks and shout cruel taunts like “pussy licker” at me. But despite it all I know in my heart I did the right thing in being true to myself.  I am now able to drink whiskey, smoke cigars, brawl in bars and walk like my balls are so big I’ve got bow legs.

 

You know me as a writer but in truer life I’d have been …

 

Gonzo off the Muppets. I like to think of him as the thinking Muppet. It’s always been apparent to me that Gonzo understands the world on a uniquely profound level. I aspire to be him.

 

Favourite films?

 

Just a few would be Sunset Boulevard, Barfly, Buffalo ’66, Betty Blue and AngelA. Marlon Brando once said he thought actors who consider themselves artists are misguided, he intimated that performers are nothing more than puppets. But two performances that absolutely astounded me were Philip Seymour Hoffman in Capote and Bruno Ganz as Adolf Hitler in Downfall. Too many films these days substitute recent advancements in technology for a good story. They are mostly films made for the playstation generation. Betty Blue is one of the saddest, most beautiful love stories ever told.

 

Are there any authors (living or dead) that you would name as influences?

 

I’m more influenced by The Velvet Underground, The Jesus & Mary Chain, Sonic Youth, Andy Warhol and Robert Frank than the more obvious literary icons. I would certainly see my work as symbolist in its execution. Actually,  I don’t see myself as heavily influenced by the Beats or Charles Bukowski, as is often mentioned. I once read someone comparing me to Giuseppe Ungaretti and that is closer to the mark, along with T.S.Eliot, Marcel Proust, e e cummings and a few other writers who themselves were influenced by the earlier symbolist period rather than actually being part of the movement itself.

 

 

What do you think of the more alternative, cultural phenomenon of the Internet based lit-Zine scene? Is it a good thing? Or is it killing off the traditional paper based publishing industry?

 

I’ve been writing the way I do since as far back as 1985 but the print magazines weren’t accepting of my style at first. It’s taken quite some time.  The way webzines have developed has opened the market place up for a new generation of writers. There is a new movement on the literary scene. Although my work first started appearing in print in 1993 much of my poetry remained unread. I was initially quite condescending in my attitude towards webzines. But I came to concede that a number of them had developed into quality platforms. So although the majority of my work has appeared only in print thus far, I am now much more eager to see my work online. The kids now have an opportunity to reach readers in a way that some of us didn’t have when we started sending our work out. But I was very late in warming to online publications. Essentially, the print magazines were publishing 95% shit. That prerogative now includes the online fraternity. Either way, you just have to find the diamonds in the rough.

 

Internet publishing is a revolution in the same way the invention of the printing press in the 1400’s made literature accessible to the masses. It will probably kill off the business of paper based publishing. The sadness I feel is that the aesthetic beauty of owning books might be lost because the pimps and their whores will find ways to make more money out of e-publishing. It all comes down to those people who value money above, say, the sheer sensory romance of walking around a second-hand book store. But in the distant future that might be something they have absolutely no concept of anyway.

 

 

What role has the Internet played in your writing?

 

As far as I can tell I still haven’t crashed any scene. I’m still an outsider standing on the fringes. Nothing appears to have changed in that respect. My website is pulling around 10,000 visitors a year, which I don’t think is bad for an individual poet’s site. As far as the literary scene goes, many of my poems that are now getting published are the very same ones that were getting rejected everywhere ten or even twenty years ago. But mostly, I appear to be the eternal outsider. I’m not at all en vogue. But I don’t care. Fuck ‘em. What most of them need is a good punch up the knickers.

Is what you write about purely literary, or is it a depiction of a certain world you‘ve been a part of?

As artists we have the potential to influence society in ways a politician can only dream of.  But personally, I only seek to scratch the veneer of the world around me. Like a snapshot, my poems are simply preserving moments in time.  I’m not too interested in immersing myself in my subject matter. I am merely an observer reporting what he sees in a world where life itself is nothing more than fiction. I would compare my poems to being like a Warhol painting rather than a Francis Bacon.

I remember looking out the rear window of a black taxi many years ago. I was 23 or something. It was about 2 a.m and the cab was careering around the inner ring road of Birmingham City. I was… shall we say… chemically induced, going from one nightclub to another. Through the narrow rear screen the glittering city streets were framed in cinemascope.  It was a purely aesthetic moment and was the inspiration for my poem Notes In A Taxi Cab At 2 a.m. I think I’ve chosen to look at the world in cinemascope ever since.

What is it about writing that appealed to you?

 

It doesn’t appeal to me at all. The internal process of writing is like a terminal disease. I’ve tried many times to give up but there is no antidote.  Quite often I can’t even sleep through the need to write and it’s completely burning me out. You don’t choose to be a writer, it chooses you.

If you could have a beer with any writer dead or alive who’d it be, and why?

I’d pretend to buy John Cooper Clarke a Creme de menthe; but I’d give him Fairy Liquid.

Anyone else on the scene you’d recommend?

Not really. We’re all a bunch of useless good-for-nothings.

In a nutshell, my philosophy is this:

Everybody’s fucked up. They’re all just trying to hide it.

 A common misconception of me is:

Some time ago I was commissioned to write 4 essays for The New Statesman. Some reader later wrote:  “what a horrible man. They’ll never have him on Thought For The Day.”  I don’t know if horrible man is a misconception. Maybe I am.  But in truth, no one really knows me.

What are you currently working on?

I’m putting the finishing touches to my second book of poetry, Tarantula, which will be out later in 2009. And I’m trying to write a novel (and failing).

I’m also toying with a stage play I’ve been writing about Christ’s last supper. It will be entitled You Can’t Nail Custard To A Wall (But You Can Nail Jesus To A Cross).  

What is the one thing you truly want people to get out of your work?

I’ve not given it much thought. I can’t say that I am at all given to altruism. I only write for myself because it is a natural cathartic function for me.  But now that you ask, I don’t really give a shit.

Visit: http://www.uvray.moonfruit.com/ & http://www.writingfromthefringes.blogspot.com/

Read: http://the-beat.co.uk/author/uvray/

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~ This piece was posted on Thursday, April 23rd, 2009 and was filed under Blog, Featured, Interview. You can make comments on it below. ~