Catastrophes choisies et autres poèmes

Catastrophes choisies et autres poèmes -- selected poems of South African Beat poet Sinclair Beiles, translated into French by Bertrand Grimault, published by Monoquini, Bordeaux, France.  Limited to 99 numbered copies.

Two poems by Sinclair Beiles in The bloody horse

 

Courtesy: Bruce Fereday

Raymond Foye writes about Who was Sinclair Beiles?

 

Burning the midnight oil with SINCLAIR BEILES, a wonderful poet who I always heard about, but knew very little about. A South African poet who lived at the Beat Hotel and was the editor of Naked Lunch + Samuel Beckett, at Olympia Press, followed by many years of mental illness which he often documented in his poems. Thanks to Gerard Bellaart for sending this book, full of essential information and many poems.

Originally posted on Facebook, 25 September, 2022.

Sinclair Beiles and the Beat Generation

 A new article about Sinclair Beiles has been published in New Frame, and Who was Sinclair Beiles?, which was published by Dye Hard Press, gets a mention.

The article starts: The 1950s were a tumultuous time for an Australian criminal and con artist called William Lindsay Pearson. An array of jewels was stolen from Brenthurst, the Johannesburg estate of the Oppenheimer family, founders of the Anglo American mining giant, in 1955. This treasure was, ultimately, derived from political connections to the apartheid state and the exploitation of Black workers.  ... more.

Telegram from San Francisco by Sinclair Beiles and Annie Rooney

Published in New Departures, bumper edition, numbers 7,8,9 and 10, London, 1975. Photo courtesy of Jeffrey Ball. 

Two poems by Sinclair Beiles in the Insect Trust Gazette

 The Insect Trust Gazette, Summer 1968, published by Robert Bassara, Bekerley, California.

Courtesy: Richard S.E. Aaron

Happy this exile, by Sinclair Beiles

Happy
This exile.
In unfamiliar streets
Canaries sing
And women smile from their doorways
At the stranger
Who carries his heart
In his hand.
He walks about the marketplace
As if risen from the dead
An ancestor
Come to see his people
Trading old coins
Stamped with his likeness.

Published in Ashes of Experience, Wurm, Pretoria, 1969

From 'The Exodus' by Sinclair Beiles

'And God was an Indian
Who did not kill insects -
And so without our toothbrushes
And our moustache mugs
We were savoured in the wilderness
Though we had these cachous to sweeten
Our breath and the tempers
Of Austrian hotel managers.'
 

From 'The Exodus', published in Ashes of Experience, Wurm, Pretoria, 1969

Pages from Universal Truths Revealed in White Tobacco Fumes

Published by Bob Cobbing's Writers' Forum, London, January 176

Manuscript of the poem 'Giraffe'

Manuscript of the poem 'Giraffe', sent to Astrid Noppen, in 1965. The poem appeared in Sinclair Beiles's debut collection, Ashes of Experience, in 1969.

Courtesy: Cold Turkey Press

Some evidence amongst the ruins, by Sinclair Beiles

estepona: you walked into a gunshop, by Sinclair Beiles

An unpublished poem by Sinclair Beiles. Courtesy: The Cold Turkey Press archives

the poet adored her, by Sinclair Beiles

Unpublished poem by Sinclair Beiles. Courtesy: The Cold Turkey Press archives

Backbone, by Sinclair Beiles

Unpublished poem. Courtesy: The Cold Turkey Press archives

The Strange Land, by Sinclair Beiles

Unpublished poem dated 10 May 1975. Courtesy: The Cold Turkey Press archives

'i used to look under my mother's bed ...' by Sinclair Beiles

Published in Death Notice, privately published, circa 1989.

'all the ecstatic faces annointed by god ...' by Sinclair Beiles

From Death Notice, privately published, circa 1989.

The Impossible Parish and Birds, by Sinclair Beiles

Published in Poems Under Suspicion and Poems on Bits of Paper: A Dual Anthology by Sinclair Beiles and Marta Proctor, Two Cities, Johannesburg, 1982.

The worm in my thumb, by Sinclair Beiles

I was born
with a fat green worm in my thumb
whenever I ate he appeared
drooping down into my plate
to share my meal.
He was also good at singing
and many a maid did he entertain.
He was killed in my twentieth year
by getting caught in the door of
an elevator.

(Published in The Idiot's Voice, Cold Turkey Press, France, 2012) 

during the rush-hour, by Sinclair Beiles

Original page from Sacred Fix, Cold Turkey Press, Rotterdam, 1975