Rishi Dastidar

Guest Post: Rishi Dastidar on his new book Saffron Jack

In these times, when poets have books published but can’t get out there to promote their work, I’ve invited a number of them to submit a poem and write a little a bit about it. I hope you enjoy these posts, and if you can possibly support the writer in question, by buying their book, it will be much appreciated.

Saffron Jack COVER First up is my Malika’s Kitchen mucker Rishi Dastidar, who in his second collection ‘Saffron Jack’ (published by Nine Arches Press), gives us a quite unique character; one who decides he’s had enough of unaccountable power, so goes about setting up his own country. Here’s a bit about the book:

“At once an exploration of a man left hollow by fate, a dispatch from the frontline of identity politics, and a rumination on the legacy of migration and empires, Saffron Jack is the story of a man trying to find somewhere he might be himself. Using an innovative form, Rishi Dastidar’s long narrative poem boldly updates Kipling’s ‘The Man Who Would Be King’ to confront one of the most pressing issues our fractured world faces today – how can we live together in peace if we exile the most vulnerable in our societies and deny them a place to belong?”

So without further ado, here’s Rishi:

Image: Naomi Woddis

“I’m sure some of you know and have watched I’m Alright Jack, the 1958 Boulting Brothers film starring Peter Sellers as a shop steward at a missile factory, which became a byword for pointing out the various skullduggeries that went on in British business at the time. The title cemented in popular usage the phrase (derived from the old name for a sailor, Jack Tar), meaning roughly people who only act in their own best interests – even when helping others won’t cost them much, literally or figuratively.

I can’t say that the film, or the phrase directly inspired Saffron Jack, but the more I come to look at the book, there is a large part of it that reflects this ‘up yours!’, ‘sod you!’ type of attitude. Of course, my Jack is not alright – far from it – but I think there’s a commonality between Jack as a character, and the extreme individualism he displays. It’s a continuum of sorts, isn’t it: acting in what you perceive to be best for you, all the way to setting up your own country, because that’s the only way you can see to solve your problems. Look after yourself, leave the others behind.

I say this not to be hard on Jack, but perhaps to ask you to be kind to him when you ask: why is he so self-obsessed? Why doesn’t he ask for help? Why doesn’t he try and help others who might be feeling something similar? Empathy comes more easily to some monarchs than others.

There is a class angle somewhere in Jack too, of course. His is, let’s be blunt, a very middle class form of rebellion – the wherewithal to get to this war zone, the natural assumption that of course he should inherit his destiny as the prince he believes himself to be, the lifestyle that he thinks he should be living and isn’t… And of course his solution to the crisis he finds himself in? Become the ultimate aristocrat in his on personal Heimat.

So there’s a moral I should have Jack meditate on more: solidarity in a crisis matters even more than in ‘normal’ times, whatever they are.”

Thanks Rishi: You can purchase Saffron Jack from Nine Arches Press here.

Excerpt from Saffron Jack:

25. How much was this crown?
25.1. This proof and reproof of your status?
25.2. It is not a question you thought you might ask, when you were at school.
25.3. What happens when you need to buy a crown?
25.3.1 And you do not mean a tiara.
25.3.1.1. (You’re not on your hen night.
25.3.1.2. Much as you might wish you were…)
25.4. You mean a proper, fuck off I’m a king crown.
25.4.1. (John Lewis don’t stock them).
25.4.1.1. Not even Peter Jones.
25.4.1.2. The last piece of evidence the shops were founded by a Marxist.
25.4.1.3.‘My apologies, sir, we’ve never had a royal headwear department.’

26. Why go where every other monarch has gone before you?

27. Elizabeth Duke.
27.1. As your royal jewellers by warrant.
27.1.1. It wasn’t your first choice.

28. A crown helicoptered in specially.
28.1. Now the only thing you’ll be able to take with you.
28.2. The last relic of your reign.
28.3. The only relic of your reign.
28.4. Not many monarchies will leave a lighter footprint than yours.

29. You would love to stuff your pockets with jewels and dubloons, wine and old masters and furs and silks; whatever you are meant to do – to claim as yours – when the curtain is coming down. A hogshead or two. But no.

30. All you have left is a cheap shit, £9.99 crown from Argos.
30.1. And a little blue pen.
30.1.1. ‘Order No. SJ33, please come to the collection point.’

Different Perspectives by Mike Gallagher

FullSizeRender (4) I have just received a great little publication by my friend and comrade in poetry, Rishi Dastidar; ‘95 Reminders’ is designed like an extra-large packet of cigarette papers, with front, back and insides adorned with epigram-type directions. The idea is based on Martin Luther’s 95 theses; some 500 years old, they were ‘arguments against what he viewed as corrupt practices of the Catholic Church, and now considered the start of the Protestant Reformation’. Rishi’s 95 reminders are a wonderful mix of wry powerful statements, from the personal (a reminder that your kids are not as interesting as your thought they were), to the global (a reminder that the world will always be on fire, whether we are here or not), to the political (a reminder that bearing witness can also be an act of resistance).

In light of today’s poem, and my interest in power, I particularly like ones such as his pop-picking Number 1 – ‘A reminder that no one – OK, very few people – ever gives up power willingly’. But the one that really rings in my ear, is probably one of the most simply put – ‘A reminder that solidarity is not a swear word’. Yes! If you look back to the miner’s strike of ’84 for example, Thatcher stopped workers from other parts of the country, going to support the likes of the Yorkshire miners. It was a brazen obstruction of solidarity.

White House Poet Mike Gallagher’s poem ‘Different Perspectives’ juxtaposes two examples of oppression; the first ‘Morant Bay, Jamaica, Seventeen Fifties,/ in close order a line of black women/ file up a ship’s gangway, overladen/ panniers of coal balanced on their heads.’ There is some comparison here with Mike’s own heritage, as the Irish were the first to be exiled to Jamaica by the British, and today still make up a large minority in the country. The second ‘perspective’ is ‘West Hartlepool, Nineteen Sixties, on a hard/ winter day, a line of unemployed men scratch/ the shoreline for nuggets of coal, shipbuilding/ gone, steelworks moved on to cheaper climes.’ Although some fifty years past, this feels so contemporaneous. And as Mike says of the two, ‘Different? Hardly! Just different perspectives.’ It is this type of solidarity of thought, experience, of action, that Thatcher knew to rail against when saying: ‘Morality is personal. There is no such thing as collective conscience, collective kindness, collective gentleness, collective freedom.’ I think the opposite to be true – it is immorality that is personal, and the aim and success of the collective, is solidarity, which she made into a swear word.

Mike Gallagher, writer, poet and editor, was born on Achill Island and worked in London for forty years before retiring to Kerry. His prose, poetry, haiku and songs have been published in Ireland and throughout Europe, America, Australia, Nepal, India, Thailand, Japan and Canada. His writing has been translated into Croatian, Japanese, Dutch, German, Italian and Chinese. He won the Michael Hartnett Viva Voce competition in 2010 and 2016, was shortlisted for the Hennessy Award in 2011 and won the Desmond O’Grady International Poetry Contest in 2012. His poetry collection Stick on Stone was published by Revival Press in 2013.

Different Perspectives

Different pictures in my Sunday paper:
Morant Bay, Jamaica, Seventeen Fifties,
in close order a line of black women
file up a ship’s gangway, overladen
panniers of coal balanced on their heads.
From an upper deck, a white overseer
looks down on the scene; no doubt, he fumes
when the woman slips, spills her load
onto the floor below; no doubt, he takes
appropriate action just as I would in Achill
all those years later when the donkey got
stuck in the bog, lashing out with whip and clog
at my own clumsy beast of burden.

West Hartlepool, Nineteen Sixties, on a hard
winter day, a line of unemployed men scratch
the shoreline for nuggets of coal, shipbuilding
gone, steelworks moved on to cheaper climes.
Balanced on the bars of Rudge or Raleigh bikes,
jute bags hold half-crown promises; Woodbines
dangle from bottom lips; half hidden under the
peaks of cloth caps, cowering despair scowls
its irresistible, irredeemable fate.

Different? Hardly! Just different perspectives
on nationhood, on history, on gender on race,
snares set by an unscrupulous elite to divide us,
to persuade us to hate, to slaughter each other
while they, the bankers, the masters of war,
the ministers, the moguls, the rapacious
minority, rob our Earth of its resources; by choice,
will starve to death eleven million children
in this one year alone; through their predator instincts,
their manic obsession with profits, will lead us into wars,
into famines, maybe annihilation, lure us, slavishly.
to the insatiable trough of commerce, make us
even more unequal. Greed makes us all the poorer.

We Are Premier League by Rishi Dastidar

The footballer Colin Kazem-Richards was born thirty years ago in east London to a Turkish/Cypriot Muslim mother and a West Indian Rastafarian father. He has played for 13 clubs in as many years, in seven countries, winning titles in Turkey, Greece and Scotland. He currently plays for the Brazilian team Corinthians, is married to a Brazilian woman with whom he has two children, who are their mother’s nationality. His national team is Turkey. Kazem-Richards is an embodiment of what the philosopher, Kwame Anthony Appiah (himself of mixed-heritage and has lived on three continents) calls ‘cosmopolitanism’; being a citizen of the world through shared values and culture.

Image by Chris Turner*

It could be argued that today’s elite football at least, is one of those shared cultural experiences, being played and watched by billions of people across the world (China is the latest country to spend big on the game). In the UK, the Premier League is a polyglot of players from different countries (in 2015 it was 64 countries, compared with 50 in Spain’s La Liga). But whilst this is a positive illustration of cosmopolitanism, it is also a negative illustration of globalisation in terms of the economic foundations that prop it up. If the Premier League is the London Square Mile of football, the lower leagues are the forgotten inner city and rural pockets of deprivation (ask any fan of my team Coventry, or Leyton Orient). Where players in the Premier League can command long and rich contracts (they are paid five times more than a Championship player), a League Two player will not only be paid much less but will have much more precarious employment conditions (short-term/loan). And then there is the totem ‘tea lady’, who is barely paid a living wage.

Rishi 9 FINAL BW suggested crop Rishi Dastidar gives us a wonderful carousel of images of today’s modern Premier League players in his poem “We are Premier League”. The lines “We are Nando’s skin on X-box wings/We are charitable visits, making dreams come true”, shows the seeming contradictions of characters who command such wealth but still enjoy the ‘finer’ delights of chicken shops whilst visiting hospitals and schools. Many of these players themselves come from disadvantaged backgrounds, with little education (they were too good at football in their teens to worry about A levels, if not GCSEs) and travelled little. But like a lottery winner, the money can go to their head, and without proper guidance, they become: “We are court appearances in Armani suits/We are playthings of offshore corporations.” I wouldn’t go so far as to say they should be the foundation of a social mobility strategy, but neither should they be made the scapegoats of global capitalism. Many of the leading players, when retiring do a lot of good work supporting different communities. But there should be a way in which the benefits of cosmopolitanism can spread the income from globalisation more equitably; the football authorities are in a position to show leadership here, especially in these times of a resurgence in reactionary nationalism.

Rishi Dastidar’s poetry has been published by the Financial Times, Tate Modern and the Southbank Centre amongst many others, and has featured in the anthologies Adventures in Form (Penned in the Margins) and Ten: The New Wave (Bloodaxe). A fellow of The Complete Works, the Arts Council England funded programme for BAME poets in the UK, he is a consulting editor at The Rialto magazine, a member of the Malika’s Poetry Kitchen collective, and also serves as chair of the writer development organization Spread The Word. His debut collection, Ticker-tape, is published by Nine Arches Press.

We are Premier League

We are Nando’s skin on X-box wings
We are charitable visits, making dreams come true

We are role models and bandwagon drivers
We are baby Bentleys on private roads

We are gold tattoos on choking necks
We are orange spider mohicans on the backs of heads

We are dating on TOWIE and fit well jel
We are boys made good on our roasts

We are court appearances in Armani suits
We are playthings of offshore corporations

We are sponsored elite, and we are endorsed
We’ve parked the bus and we want more

We are the wages of underachievement
We are 17th place and we are class

(“We are Premier League” is taken from Rishi’s debut collection, Ticker-tape, published by Nine Arches Press)

* Image by Chris Turner

Proletarian Poetry at the Poetry Library

On Wednesday 6th April, Proletarian Poetry took over the Poetry Library as part of their Special Editions series. With the poets, Mona Arshi, Rishi Dastidar, Fran Lock, Clare Pollard, Richard Skinner, and Laila Sumpton, this was always going to attract a full house. For those unfortunate enough to miss the event, there is a link to a recording of all six poets readings below, and introductions from myself (I have included in the latter the time in the recording the poet started reading and a link to the original poem featured on the site). I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

The link to the whole recording of the evening is here: https://soundcloud.com/the-poetry-library/proletarian-poetry

Proletarian Poetry at the Poetry Library

Thank you everybody for coming this evening and to the library staff who have been so helpful in setting up the event. (more…)

January Review – it wasn’t all about London!

January by William Carlos Williams

Again I reply to the triple winds
running chromatic fifths of derision
outside my window:
Play louder.
You will not succeed. I am
bound more to my sentences
the more you batter at me
to follow you.
And the wind,
as before, fingers perfectly
its derisive music.

The year kicked off with the poem Midlands Kids by Jane Commane. This took me back to my home town of Coventry where we ‘grew up on the back seats of the long-gone marques of British manufacturing‘ and those who worked in their factories didn’t end up with jobs for life and vanished from view like ‘the legendary square steering wheel of a paintshop-fresh Allegro.’ (more…)

Diagnosis: ‘Londonism’ by Rishi Dastidar

“Capitalism has subjected the country to the rule of the towns. It has created enormous cities. Capitalism has agglomerated population, centralised means of production, and has concentrated property in a few hands.”

marxwalks.com

Karl Marx was 195 on May 5th last year, and wrote these words albeit using the word ‘bourgeoisie’ instead of capitalism. John Lanchester used this trick when quoting Marx to show how prescient he was in describing the structure of capitalism and the way in which it changes the landscape (I sometimes think that capitalists understand Marx better than Marxists). (more…)

The Out of Town Shuffle at the Poetry Cafe

Andrew Smardon, Hilda Sheehan, Brad Schmauss, Jo Bell, Kim Moore, Liz Dorfman, Joey Connolly

Poets really are a welcoming bunch. Standing at the bar of the Poetry Café last night, I introduced myself to Kim Moore, who like Jo Bell at the Forward Prize, invited me to join her and friends before the readings (I didn’t quite get to the bottom of why Hilda Sheehan ended up in a freezer in Lidl, or was it Aldi?).

I was there for The Shuffle to hear seven poets from ‘out of town’ organised and hosted by Jill Abram. I liked the way Jill introduced the poets by reading a poem for each of them (she meets a lot of people, mainly on residential writing courses as far as I can gather). (more…)