INTERVIEW: Monkey Poet

In anticipation of Coastival 2012's Comedy Gala,  John Allsopp talks to Monkey Poet about milk, making a difference and groupies.

JA: So, where are you from Monkey?

MP: That is a long story, the short answer is Cheshire! My heritage is Caucas, Polish, Austrian, French, Irish, Scouser! ;0)

JA: How do you like to start the day?

MP: Being a poetic soul, I like to start my day in the afternoon. Ideally with a coffee, croissant, and a copy of the Guardian. As currently I reside in Salford - I start my day with a coffee. Everyday I think about exercise, and everyday I dismiss this thought. Waving my cigarette over my coffee, I ruminate about which of the three 'S's I'm going to do first. Shaving is out, the Showering can wait, so I head to the toilet. Here I can devote time to thinking, at peace with the World and plugged into the Cosmos.

JA: I've imagined what you did before being a poet. I reckon you worked in Debenhams for a bit, but then became the man who turned up to measure up for a stairlift. Am I close?

MP: No. I've been a poet since I was 6. Before that I tried to avoid dribbling food on my shirt (mostly without success).

JA: Wow, does that mean you're like one of these professional politicians who has no experience of the real world?

MP: Well, dribbling is an essential skill for politicians and poets alike. The only difference is what's stained on your chin. With a poet, it's likely to be wine or gravy, a politician, best not go into that...likely to be the same colour as gravy though.

JA: Do you suffer any illnesses?

MP: I have an allergy to milk, that's about it. If I'm lucky I regurgitate instantly, if not then for the next 30hrs I feel like I'm going to birth an elephant. The upside to this is that the old wives tale of eating cheese before bed gives you nightmares is particularly true with me. To borrow a sixties psychedelic phrase, my dreams are full blown 'experiences'. This way, unlike poets from previous generations, Byron, Shelley & Ginsberg for example, I can avoid relying on drugs. If I need inspiration I just do two lines of parmesan.

JA: Several ladies I know seem impressed with you, are you available?

MP: I'm readily available, and even on a sale or return basis. Though I have to admit I'm a misogamist. Not, I stress, a misogynist, there's a crucial difference there. It's because I'm a fervent non-mysoginist that I'm a misogamist .. I think there's a poem in there.

JA: Is there anything you want to share that's caused your misogamy? Why am I getting the idea that you're a poet because of the groupies?

MP: Just a simple numbers game, I think. With 50% or thereabouts of the worlds population being women, the idea that there's a single perfect one seems ridiculous. I think there's several hundred thousand at least that would make my perfect partner. And then when you think of it in those terms, none would make my perfect partner, because there's another several hundred thousand that would. The term perfect partner loses all credibility. All there is is a sad loneliness tinged with the inevitability of death...so, better to cuddle up with someone and make hay while the Sun shines! On the groupies thing, I don't think Poets get groupies as such anymore. At least I don't! The heady days of Byron's 'Mad, bad and dangerous to know era' are a long way behind us. There's no doubt that Bukowski used his rep to sleep with a lot of women, but he was also a dirty little beggar way before he had a rep, it seemed almost payback with him. And God he was an honest fella.

JA: 'Understanding' (click here to watch on YouTube) seems a bit epic, how long did it take you to write it?

MP: Somewhere between 5 minutes and 30 years!

JA: Would it have worked to have had a third man making hand signals to steer you, so you could walk backwards the whole time?

MP: Possibly, I'd have been more worried about curbs and lamposts. Most people tend to steer clear of a six foot five loon whose not looking where he's going.

JA: What drives you?

MP: Different things, I've always written poetry, and would still write it if not performing, and I still write poems I would never perform, because they're either a) too personal or b) too boring or c) too personal and too boring. A poem is a perfect device to get your thoughts down about a subject, it's not a novel where you have to think of character arc or development, or what happens next. A poem can be shorter than a sentence.

And I do get a kinetic kick out of performing, a real alive moment that's drug-like. I fancied myself an actor but now I'm not too sure I want to speak anybody else's words. I get a chance to bitch about the things I truly care about in an, hopefully, entertaining way...and, of course, there's always the prospect of groupies.

JA: I wrote this: http://www.johnallsopp.co.uk/blogViewer.php?blog=1978 . Is poetry becoming more popular or am I just late to the party? If poetry is becoming more popular, why? Is poetry the British answer to American Rap? Give me one more poet besides yourself that I might like, given that you now know who I do like.

MP: Poetry's going through a cycle of popularity at the moment but it never really went away. It can't. Poetry's about expressing an individual voice, and the thing with the species is, we're none of us individual, not really. I used to avoid the description poet because of the negative connotations it has, y'know "This is dedicated to Shelagh who's just walked out on me..." kind of thing, and I wanted it to have what I saw as the power of stand-up, Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, Bill Hicks, Richard Pryor, an outlaw sensibility. And then I started learning about Poetry and it always had that outlaw sensibility. Percy Shelley wrote the Masque of Anarchy and Merry Men of England calling for a revolution, he was a danger to the authorities, that's why when he died the establishment colluded, and re-wrote history, labelling him a ponce...and that's the view of him we have to this day. The Chartist Poets were normal men and women writing about their protests, for a minimum wage, a co-operative, fair worker's rights, some of them were imprisoned for ten years, for writing a poem! There are poets in prison in Burma, Iran, all over the world. 20 year old Ayat Al-Qormezi disappeared in Bahrain after reciting her words criticising the regime. Poetry is the shit. It's better than rap. It's better than literature. It's better than stand-up. You don't have to rhyme, develop character's or be funny. It doesn't have to make any grammatical sense whatsoever. It doesn't have to be spelt correctly. It can be shorter than a sentence. All it does is package an idea into about the size of a bullet. And one well placed bullet can change the world.

MP: If you like me you'll like...crikey. That's a hard one, not because I'm shatteringly original, just that I want to start naming people I admire and then it seems like I'm putting myself up there with them! So, instead, I recommend you listen or read John Cooper Clarke, John Hegley, Shelley...more to the point, if you're ever in London catch Bang said the Gun!, an excellent night of performance poetry, if you're in Manchester I'm starting a night called Spoke'n'Heard with people I really like, Tim Clare, John Osbourne, Jackie Hagan and more. The best bet is just get yourself out to a night and takes a chance. If there isn't a night near you, start one, I guarantee it'll take off.

JA: Is there a "people who liked Monkey Poet also liked this" service anywhere?

MP: No - there's not a service like that. If you liked Monkey Poet, then watch this space, I'll be right back.

JA: Do you know whether you make a difference?

MP: It depends on what scale. I certainly haven't changed government policy on anything. But on the personal level many times. I'm currently performing a show, a play called Welcome to Afghanistan, set in the 1800's and in the time of our first conflict there. I performed the show at a charity do and a couple came over to me and said "We're from the Northern Territory, you took us home." which was beautiful really, but, was the furthest thing from my mind when I was devising the play. I do a poem that references Sarah Bryant, the first female soldier to be killed in duty. It was in Scarborough actually. A guy came over to me at the end, shook me by the hand and said that she was his CO. I was dumbstruck. On a personal level you never know how you're going to affect a member of the audience. To be honest, I'm just happy if I can entertain people. If someone's said they've had a good night out, that's enough.

JA: I can write, but I can't write poetry (and definitely not lyrics), yet someone once said I write with rhythm and they weren't surprised I'm a drummer, what's the bit that I'm missing?

MP: Words

JA: If there's a 16 year old reading this thinking "wow, when I grow up I want to be Monkey Poet", what's your advice to them?

MP: Do it. And do it now. Though I've been writing since I was a kid I made the decision to perform later in life. If you have a goal or a dream pursue it, and don't let anyone persuade you to drop it. Try, Fail, Try again, Fail better as Beckett said.

JA: Do you know if they still teach poetry at school in a hot summers day falling asleep get me out of here before I die kinda way? How would you do it? Do you love Dead Poets Society as much as I do?

MP: I don't know how they teach poetry nowadays. I think if you've a genuine passion for something then education exists to kick it right out of you. Fancy doing f***ing exams! You're 16, hormones raging, energy coursing through your body, and it's "Sit still for 3 hours, mess this up and you've just lost your right to live." Have you ever been as stressed as you were when you were doing an exam on something? There are f***ing bomb disposal people out there, more relaxed dismantling explosives than they were in exams.

I do run poetry workshops but I concentrate on the performance side of things, you know, what to do if an audience member throws a bin full of empty beer bottles at you, which happened to me in San Francisco, how to accept an award graciously, which also happened in San Francisco. It's a real city of extremes, San Francisco.

Dead Poet's Society is a guilty pleasure, though I've not seen it since it was on the cinema. I think it shows how the attitude to rebellion was softened though, in Lindsay Anderson's If... from the sixties, the kids get machine guns and butcher the staff and students in a bloody revolution, in Dead Poets they stand on tables.

JA: I fancy starting a popular uprising, are you in?

MP: You hum it, I'll play it.

JA: If we all followed our dreams no-one would be there to serve us in shops. So are you privileged or selfish?

MP: I'm selfish in the way that I'm doing what I want, however, I'm probably saving you from a horrendous customer service experience.

JA: Have you been on telly yet?

MP: Nope

JA: Tell me something about you and Scarborough.

MP: We both like Alan Ayckbourn

JA: Are you looking forward to HS2?

MP: I can't wait to feel the benefit, sometime in 2033, if it all runs to schedule. And what Government project has ever run over?

JA: How do you monetize your content?

MP: That's a great question. You can pay to come and see me! Failing that, my website www.monkeypoet.co.uk, has an album you can listen to for free or download for a fiver. It's a fully cast radio play with live bits of poetry interspersed, there's also my first collection, Inappropriate Moral Stories, available to buy from the site.