A First-Class Letter from the Lost and Found

When I read Heathcote Williams' description of a bizarre project that for a time obsessed the South African poet Sinclair Beiles, who wanted to plant "the barren Sahara desert" with "industrial quantities of  discarded tea-leaves", I remembered a letter than Carl Weissner once wrote ....read more here

Letter from Carl Weissner to Sinclair Beiles, 1971

Carl Weissner:  Brief an Sinclair Beiles

30. März 1971

Dear Sinclair: Die Sahara ist bewässert. Was jetzt?  Während Armeen von Hippies am San-Andreas-Graben knien und auf ein Zeichen warten. Es ist faszinierend, zu welchen Blödheiten der Mensch sich herabläßt.

Ich sehe, dein Botschafter hat sich bei der Junta in Athen für deine Freilassung und Repatriierung verwendet. Es war ja auch nicht nötig, noch weiter  bei Wasser und Brot usw. , denn du hast in einer Fasson gepunktet, die dich bei den Trampern der Welt unsterblich macht. Pennyless in Greece? Haust du einfach im Hafen von  Piräus dem nächsten Marineoffizier eine rein, wirst verhaftet und eingelocht – bingo!  schon hast du ein Dach überm Kopf.  Das merke ich mir für den Fall, dass ich mal in einer Hafenstadt ohne Peso 1 an der Ecke stehe und keinen Ankerplatz finde.

Im WDR Köln machen sie jetzt eine Drei-Stunden-Sendung über die Black Panthers. Ich bin als Übersetzer und Zitatsprecher dabei und darf seitenweise Huey Newton rezitieren: "We intend, within the confahns of the oppressor state, to stay armed to the teeth for decades! Centuries!..."Howgh.

Noch etwas: Du kannst mir eine Freude machen, indem du es unterläßt, alle möglichen  Leute auf mich anzusetzen.

Da bekomme ich neulich von Paloma Picasso ein Briefchen in ihrer wunderschönen Handschrift, und was will sie? Daß ich was schreibe für ihre demnächst erscheinende europäische(!) Literaturzeitschrift.

Jetzt überleg mal. Sie ist knapp 21. Warum setzt du ihr solche Flausen ins Ohr?  Im nächsten Moment geht sie zu Christian Lacroix und sagt: "Monsieur, ich möchte Schmuck für Sie entwerfen. Wenn's recht ist."  Der Name öffnet Tür und Tor, mit dem Ergebnis, daß sie jede Woche drei oder vier neue Sachen anschiebt, und nie wird was daraus. Sag ihr, sie soll Mätresse von Salvador Dali werden. Ach, der hat schon eine? Na, dann eben nicht.

Ah – und schon wieder läßt du dich in ein englisches Irrenhaus einweisen (Wieso macht Annie diesen Scheiß mit?  Ach nein, ich seh grade, daß dich diesmal dein Zahnarzt eingewiesen hat – how come?  Ich wette, er kassiert einen Kickback.) bloß damit du in Ruhe ein Theaterstück in gereimten Versen schreiben kannst…

Sinclair, ich habe es schon mal gesagt und wiederhole es: Der fünfhebige Jambus ist nicht dein Freund. Und der gereimte schon gar nicht.

Laß die Finger davon und schreib wieder gutbezahlten Schweinkram für Maurice Girodias. Den werden wir dir in hündischer Verzückung aus der Hand fressen. Ein Erfolgserlebnis, auf das du nicht verzichten solltest.

Carl Weissner: Letter to Sinclair Beiles

March 30^th, 1971

Dear Sinclair: The Sahara is watered. Now what? While armies of hippies are on their knees along the San Andreas Fault waiting for a sign. It’s fascinating, which stupidities the human being will let himself be subjected to. I see that your ambassador put in a pitch to the junta in Athens for your freedom and repatriation. It wasn’t necessary to continue with bread and water, etc., as you’ve managed to make points in a way that will make you immortal in the eyes of the hobos of the world. Penniless in Greece? Just punch the next Marine Officer in the face in the harbor of Piraeus, you’ll get arrested and locked up—bingo! You’ve got a roof over your head. I’ll remember that, in case I ever find myself in a harbor town without 1 peso, standing in a corner with no place to drop anchor.

At WDR Cologne they’re producing a three-hour program about the Black Panthers. I’m involved as translator and speaker and get to recite pages of Huey Newton: "We intend, within the confahns of the oppressor state, to stay armed to the teeth for decades! Centuries!..." Howgh.

Another thing: You can do me a favor by not directing all possible people toward me. I recently got a letter from Paloma Picasso in her wonderful handwriting, and what does she want? That I write something for her soon-to-be-appearing European(!) literary magazine. Now think about that. She’s barely 21. Why do you give her ideas like that? In the next moment she goes to Christian Lacroix and says: “Monsieur, I’d like to design some jewelry for you. If that’s okay.” The name opens doors and gates, with the result that every week she’s got three or four new things going on, out of which nothing ever materializes. Tell her she should become the mistress of Salvador Dali. Ah, he’s already got one? Then never mind.

Ah—and again you let yourself be committed in an English nuthouse (Why does Annie comply with this shit? Oh no, I see now that this time your dentist committed you—how come? I bet he gets a kickback.) just so you can write a play in rhymed verse in peace and quiet…

Sinclair, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the iambic pentameter is not your friend. And rhymed verse definitely not. Hands off that stuff and write more well-paid filth for Maurice Girodias. Then we’ll eat from your hand with dog-like ecstasy. A sense of achievement you won’t want to miss out on.

(English translation by Mark Terrill)
 

(Courtesy: Cold Turkey Press archives)

The Idiot’s Voice: More Dissidence from Cold Turkey

Leonard Cohen, who is not given to easy praise, has called Sinclair Beiles "one of the great poets of the century". Meaning the 20th century - they met back in the early 1960s on the Greek island of Hydra. Was Cohen being uncharacteristically hyperbolic? Well, William S Burroughs, also not given to easy praise, once  wrote: "The poetry of Sinclair Beiles is distinguished and long distilled; its unexpected striking images bring forth a flash of surprised recognition. The poems open slowly in your mind, like Japanese paper flowers in water." ...  Read more here

Letter from Sinclair Beiles to Jay Jeff Jones, April 1975

Victims Wanted

Universal Truths Revealed in White Tobacco Smoke, after Tristan Tzara

Universal Truths Revealed in White Tobacco Smoke, after Tristan Tzara, by Sinclair Beiles,  published by Cordelia Editions, Johannesburg, in 1976. Artwork by Bob Cobbing. More details of this edition can be found at The Artists' Book.

The first edition of this book was published by the London Poetry Poetry, in 1974.

When I visited Beiles in 1994, he showed me a third edition of this work, which instead of a book was a boxed set of cards. He said it had been produced in Italy. I am unable to remember the exact details, but I was under the impression it had been produced in the late 1980s.

A photo by Xristos Aggelakopoulos

Robbie, a short story published in Bomb magazine

A small notice about "Robbie", a short story by Sinclair Beiles published by Bomb magazine #6, Summer 1983. The story concerns a love-struck man speaking to a detective and a washerwoman. Click here

Sinclair Beiles, Yeoville, Johannesburg 1994

Terrible Dreams by Sinclair Beiles

My condition is lamentable - to me anyway.
I keep a kind of old flying machine stability
On a cupboard full of drugs
And as I fly through the day
I can hear my nerves creaking.
I look over the side of the cockpit
And below I see the horrors of enemy territory
- the mental hospitals.
All I can think of is writing as much as I can
While a semblance of sanity and strengthen
remains for me,
I fear the fate of Artaud
Of Nietzsche
Of Nijinsky.
If some small magazine editor happens to
drop into your office
Or into your soup in the form of a fly when
You eat at
The arts laboratory
Perhaps you can pull out this work for his
consideration.
Tell him I have terrible dreams.

(From Ashes of Experience, Wurm, Pretoria, 1969)

Advert for Nova Broadcast titles, 1968

Nova Broadcast press was run by Jan Herman back in the late 1960s. As indicated by this advert, it was originally planned as a venture in collaboration with Beach Books, Texts & Documents and the literary journal The San Francisco Earthquake. Among others, Nova published works by Ray Bremser, Norman O Mustill, Carl Weissner, Dick Higgens and Wolf Wostell. However, some of the titles announced in the advert did not make it to publication - including  Alice in Progress by Sinclair Beiles and Annie Rooney, his first wife. (Joyce Mansour's Flash Card was later published by Cherry Valley Editions.)

And she brought a little boy to me, by Sinclair Beiles

And she brought a little boy to me
to make love to
and when his tears
welled up in his eyes
she said to him
come to mother.
her breasts were smeared with honey
and I said to her
alright you can take me
to America.

(First published in Ashes of Experience, Wurm Publishers, Pretoria, 1969, then in Porno Literature, ed. Christo Doherty and Sarah Mills, Bobbejaan Pers, 1989. Reprinted in my ghost in the bush of lies, Paul Wessels, Deep South, Grahamstown, 2005.)

As he had no oil, by Sinclair Beiles

As he had no oil to stop
the door from squeaking
he stuffed its hinge with wild honey.
Soon the living room was filled
with wild bees which settled
along the inner edge of the door.
When he tried to chase them away,
they set on him and stung him.
So severe were the stings that in a day
he was dead
And then the bees began to build
a hive in his open mouth.

(From The Idiot's Voice, Cold Turkey Press, 2012)

The San Francisco Earthquake Vol 1, No 3

The San Francisco Earthquake, Volume 1, Number 3, published  San Francisco, 1968.  78pp. Contains writings by Jacob Herman, Robert Duncan, Rod Padgett, Tom Veitch, Jean-Pierre Duprey, Harold Norse,  Gerard Bellaart and Sinclair Beiles, as well as collages by Carl Weissner, Liam O'Gallagher, Mary Beach, Jean-Clarence Lambert, Norman O. Mustill and Pelieu. 

Beiles's contribution is an 8-page film scenario called 'The Last Procession'.

The Idiot's Voice on Longhouse Poetry and Publishers

Let me utter my last words

in a taxi cruising slowly through
the beautiful posies of neon signs.
Let someone else die in my room
on the turned mattress
so it doesn't show stains.
Let him savor the smell of it.
The smell of old lemons and let his last
moments be guillotined by badly
played guitars in other rooms.
In readiness I have a shirt with the black
ring scrubbed off the collar and a suit
which was shiny before I sandpapered it.
And now I must find my last words....Read more here

Unisa Archives - Sinclair Simon Maurice Beiles Papers

The Sinclair Beiles Papers, which comprise 0,2 linear metres, were donated to the Unisa Library Archive by Dawie Malan in 2001. The Beiles papers include interesting correspondence, manuscripts, photographs, pamphlets, posters and eleven sketches. The papers throw some light on the enigma of Sinclair Beiles ( 1930-2000). Read more here

Wandering Poet of Paris and Yeoville

The Idiot's Voice - a collection of previously unpublished poems by Sinclair Beiles

The Idiot's Voice is a collection of 25 previously unpublished poems by Sinclair Beiles.

Published by Cold Turkey Press, France, the first edition is limited to 36 copies.

Cost is 15 euros, excluding postage.

For order information, contact coldturkeypress@gerardbellaart.com