Frank Sherlock and the Philadelphia Poetry scene are synonymous. His work has been published widely in the small and electronic press. He is the author of Wounds in an Imaginary Nature Show, (Night Flag Press), Spring Diet of Flowers at Night, (Mooncalf Press), ISO, (furniture press) and 13, (ixnay press). Past collaborations include work with CAConrad, Jennifer Coleman and sound artist Alex Welsh. Publication of his most recent collaborative poem with Brett Evans, entitled Ready-to-Eat Individual is forthcoming in the near future. Frank has hosted a number of poetry series in the city, the latest The Night Flag Series and is a regular contributor to The Philly Sound Blog. You can visit with Frank at http://franksherlock.blogspot.com/
What Others Say About Frank Sherlock:
“I’ve been lucky enough to see Frank’s work evolve for more than a decade now, and we’ve been even luckier to publish a fair chunk of it here at ixnay press as well. His writing is equal parts body, brain, & spirit - the poems negotiate both the darkest avenues & brighest skies of our fair city, always with the keenest eye, the sharpest wit, the sexiest strut. & by the way, the man can break a line like no one else in the business.” - Chris McCreary- co-editor, ixnay press
“Frank Sherlock’s poetry uses a poetic composting system, where thoughts and noticings which might evaporate or be discarded from the mind are collected and made into an area of material where perceptions and insights can grow. Like Buck Downs, he uses a kind of poetic witness protection program to relocate micro-social speech rhythms, self-reflective process descriptions and figures of speech” - Drew Gardner’s Blog
The Interview:
Q. You recently survived a battle with meningitis and other health issues as a result of the meningitis. How are you feeling now and what effect did winning this battle have on your outlook on life?
Well, having the opportunity to have an outlook on life has done wonders for my outlook on life. I think about it less as a battle than a surf outing. Just without the water, the temptations, the sun, or the speedo. But I did have an assless gown in the hospital, which was less comfortable and even less flattering, if you can believe that. Surfing in a hospital bed in late January takes some imagination- or in this case, sick delusions & hallucinogenic painkillers. I remember being in the hospital bed and imagining watching myself surf on television- like the end of Basquiat, one of my favorite films. But I tried with mixed results to imagine the soundtrack differently because I thought it would change the outcome. As you might remember, things didn’t end well for Jean-Michel. But I don’t want to diminish the seriousness of the situation, because it was serious and there were a lot of friends who were very serious about helping me live. And they did. They helped me live. Battle… This is something to think about. Because I wanted/wished that I was battle-ready, but I was really just surviving- riding this out and hopefully getting through this. And I want to come back to the soundtrack of it all, because it was soundtracked. For days in the ICU, I would awaken in the middle of the night alone, and Jimmy Cliff’s “Many Rivers to Cross” just played over and over in my head. And I love that song, but I didn’t want it in my head. Not for this. It’s a pretty sad song, after all. I wanted something more defiant, a kind of F U anthem. I tried to get The Pogues’ “If I Should Fall from Grace with God” to stick, but it just wouldn’t. So I surrendered to the sadness and just tried to make it through. I won’t be the same when I hear that song again. I hear a snippet whenever I lay down to sleep alone.
Q. Over the years you have become entwined in the poetry fabric of the city. Your work is enjoyed by academics and blue collar types. To what do you attribute this appeal?
Academy, meet the street. Street, meet the academy. Talk to each other already. I would like to talk more about blue collars, but they’ve gotten so hard to find here. In the boom of Sixth Boroughness, the homeless population has doubled in the last four years. But I appreciate the notion of appealing to blue collar types because I like to talk to ghosts. My favorite poems are written w/ Slovenian philosophers and Irish bartenders. I am attracted to the genius they’re willing to share. The poems I put my name on are collaborations of encounter. I’m a thief without record, and so I continue to steal. But when they work, the poems are acts of exchange. I have never really written a poem all by myself.
America has enough specialists. Narrowing in becomes a kind of cultural compulsion that I’ve never been so much interested in. If the poems do appeal across academic/everyday folk divides, I’d like to think it’s because they write poems with me, and can hear/see traces of themselves in the speech, in the voiceprints. Maybe that’s the appeal. But a lot of people seem to like my shoes too, so you never really know.
Q. It’s two in the morning and you are at the door at Dirty Franks Bar and a poet enters the bar that you recognize and admire; who would that be?
You’d better be pretty special to walk into the bar at two in the morning. That’s my time to go home. So I want to say no one. Nobody’s that special. Okay, that’s a lie. My people are my people, so they’re always welcome on some level, just maybe a little less so at that hour. But there’s at least one person who can show up any time. It will never happen of course, but should she walk through that doorway into the bar & out of the bizarro world, Alice Notley is welcome anywhere I am anytime she feels like. Her combination of integrity & of course her poems are an ongoing source of inspiration for me. And she’s the only poet who ever made me cry during a reading. I look to Alice as a model of the possible. Too many artists get a bit of popularity doing a particular thing, writing in a particular way. They spend the last thirty years of their lives writing more or less the same poem with diminishing drive & effectiveness.
Alice dismantled & rebuilt. She dismantles over & over again coming back to us w/ these beautiful new machines made from the parts surrounding us. These parts are not shiny & new. They’re older than all of us. But they’re functioning in new ways. A few years ago, I met up w/Alice in Paris at a Vietnamese place for coffee. I remember honing my imaginary poetics, philosophy & mythology speak before we met in preparation for our conversation. Now, she’s family because her biological sons are poetry brothers to me. But family can be the most intimidating, right? We mostly just talked about sex & the police, but that’s not important, let me come back. She has been very generous to my companeros who are writing the most important poetry in the world right now. She’s smart enough to not be too smart for the generations that come after her. This is probably why she can dismantle & rebuild while so many older poets are left watching their own work age. The dedication of her new book reads, “for my sons and their friends.” Come on in, Alice!
Q. Please tell us about “Spring Diet of Flowers at Night” published by Mooncalf Press.
The poem is dedicated to lovers in wartime. It was commissioned as part of Poetry, Politics & Proximity: the Third Annual Kerry Sherin Wright Prize for an event at UPenn’s Kelly Writers House. It’s a kind of micro-environmental read on political engagement, or a kind of politic of everyday life. Living in the empire is a daily negotiation, creating willful capacities to engage in acts that both oppress and resist oppression all day long. It is a mad age, and trying to live a dignified life within this time is a maddening pursuit. And a necessary one. Not out of the goodness of our hearts, or even some imperialist patronage, but for our very survival as people we’d like to meet if we could meet ourselves on the street. That’s what Spring Diet of Flowers at Night is about for me today. It was about something else when it was written. And it’ll be about something else when you read it again I hope.
Q. Who were major influences on you as a developing poet and why?
There are many of course, but I’d like to talk about my old friend Caesar. He is a high school drop-out & a genius. Our friendship was one founded on argument. Over the years we’d have protracted arguments for hours at a time over the restoration of the Peacock Throne, pornography or the end of the Roman Empire. We argued through science and art, music and history. It was through argument that I came to poetry. He was always, always reading back then. I read a good bit, but I had to really study to make new arguments, and to keep up with him. He is a true autodidact who develops a reputation for his erudition, then rejects any notion of official respect and moves in a totally different direction. When you have someone close to you who isn’t afraid to change their life, it gives you a courage you didn’t know you had until you see it in front of you. He lives the Coltrane adage, “You can learn anything from anyone at any time.” Nothing is dismissed if there is knowledge to be found. He embraces the lesson &/or the joke, whether it comes from a prostitute or a Marine Sergeant or a homeless Lakota man he met on the Broad Street Line. I wasn’t intimidated by the arts because he taught me to apply art through the ages to our everyday lives. His integration of literature in everyday life is without pretense and with great enthusiasm. He spoke of the Iliad’s relevance to the punk rock vs. corner-boy wars around South Street. He noted the Dickensian conditions of Sixth Street below Washington, in the area that was South Philly. He’d see Rasputin at the Woolworth’s counter, and an Ezra Pound look-alike lurking by the peepshows with a large manuscript under his arm. He continues to be an influence because the people I encounter in the city we share are influences as well.
Q. Are you working on any new projects and are there any new works ready for release you would like to share with us?
Daybook of Perversities & Main Events was recently released on Cy Gist Press. It is called a privilege to grow skeletons that grow to become something. Gunfire resumes. Over Here is a chapbook just out by Katalanche Press. Our true stories have always been different than their true stories. The oven’s been exploded. The bread is still expected. This is for you. Let’s eat. Anyday now, a collaborative piece I wrote w/ Brett Evans in New Orleans in 2006 called Ready-to-Eat Individual will be released on Lavender Ink Books. It’s a NOLA journal & State-of-the-City poem for the Year 1 A.K. (After Katrina). And this spring, Factory School will be releasing The City Real & Imagined:
Philadelphia Poems. It’s a collaborative wander piece with CAConrad that jumps off at LOVE Park & explores the not-yet histories & archaic futures of Philly that haven’t yet been sold to the New York Times.
Thanks so much, George. Cheers!
