Author Archives: Chris Floyd

Kahlil Azeem (1928-1979), activist and author. Born James Vantrease in Meridian, Mississippi, he was sent to live with relatives in Boston after his mother died in 1933. At the age of 19 he was convicted of armed robbery and sentenced … Continue reading →

O days when the world was fair and strange, and strange stars blazed in the Southern night. Ghostly scent of pine from the canopy shrouding the encampment; strange landscape, strange birds, unknown back home, smoke rising from half-extinguished fires. These … Continue reading →

MANY THINGS ARE POSSIBLE Not everything. Not paradise or perfection. But many things. Better things. Clearer, deeper ways of seeing. Richer, deeper ways of being. Many things are possible. Despair is a disease spread by the powerful, like smallpox laced … Continue reading →

    Your mother is dead and your past is gone. These childhood memories are just self-indulgence. No, you’re wrong there. The memory of how she took my hand that day, the feel of her stiff, starchy shirt, the ironing board … Continue reading →

John Bridger. (1947-2013) “Punk poet” considered one of the godfathers of the movement. He co-wrote songs with John Lydon and Joe Strummer among others, and published a number of books in the 1980s and 1990s, including Jesus Christ Was a … Continue reading →

Dmitri Semyonovich Maslov (1878-1937). The “Peasant Poet” (dubbed by Western critics as the “Russian John Clare”). Maslov was taken up by figures such as Vladimir Bryusov, Aleksandr Blok and others who made much of his “primitive lyrical power” and closeness … Continue reading →

Liz James (b. 1956). Poet and novelist. Her books of poetry include The Prettiest Women of the Empire are Dancing, Body Language and Sixteen Archers. Her two published novels are Here We Wander, There We Weep and Thunder, Perfect Mind. … Continue reading →

Morris Beaumont (1897-1969). Painter and poet. “Primitive” artist from Blue Mill, Tennessee. Having spent most of his life running a feed store in his home town, he was discovered by Jack Kerouac in the early Sixties, who found one of … Continue reading →

Lazar Efros, Russian poet (1889-1931). Books include Frame Lines, Night Must Pass, and The Last Moon Burned Down. The Only Land This is the only land, the land of mourning, Gray water and golden sand. They are the destructive fire, … Continue reading →

At midnight, not a flicker; it’s still burning, blank and unobtrusive on my desk. No presence to be taken in or tended: a flame that’s conquered night but lost its breath.