Dear Albie

Thanks for yours. Sounds bleaker than a night with Godly ?Happy? Hill. Does The Gob really imagine that more moolah can be mangled out of it all? I mean two and a half million quid a year can?t be bloody bad, I know I must account for ?1.5 million of that [...]]]> Albert

Dear Albie

Thanks for yours. Sounds bleaker than a night with Godly ?Happy? Hill. Does The Gob really imagine that more moolah can be mangled out of it all? I mean two and a half million quid a year can?t be bloody bad, I know I must account for ?1.5 million of that turnover, despite my royalties (shouldn?t they be renamed penuries for poetry?). Seriously, does The Gob think that there?s more to be squeezed out, I thought Wiggy was earning his keep with it all, has he moved up onto the Seventh Level again? It?s all that follicular enhancement.

I warned you about the need for another scraggy anthol. What we need is another war to milk for all its got, can?t you talk to Anthony Charles Lynton about invading somewhere or bombing the Serbs again. How about something on third world poverty instead, does that still sell to the over earnest crumb pushers? Can you hop on the eco bandwagon, lots of nymphs and satyrs in glebes and groves, or is that too BoHo, not quite SoHo ? I know you?d vote for tarmacking the planet and establishing a global circuit for Bentleys if you could. Are there enough cabbage-gnawing soul munchers around for something mind, body and spirit or has wicked LuciBlair converted them all in to raving crusaders? How about an anthology of lies? At least Blair?s reinstalled the cult of Diana. Do you think he actually sees himself as Actaeon?

Look why not do something with the PBS, isn?t Simmo sorting the chaff there just now? He?s always crowing about whom he?s rejected when I see him at Arvon, perhaps that?s just the Bolivian Marching Powder loosening his nasal septum.

Did that thing you did a few years back in selecting the Vexed Degeneration not lead anywhere? I was always pissed off you didn?t choose me but I know you said it was going to be a major service to my writing to be left out. What was it you said? ?Sticking pins in the arse of verse.?

I can?t really see The Gob disciplining you. Honestly. I?ve tried for bleeding years and you?ve never given an inch. Find something simple to fend off the phonies and crawlers and stick a few fivers in the chops of the gobby bards.

Love Ollie

22 November 2006

Dear Pooch,

Cheers me dear. We?ve come up with two corkers. ?Bard to bard?, a bit like feeding rendered slaughterhouse waste to the poor lambs. We?re going to push them out like farts after a Birmingham Balti. The Gob has already gone for it. Sales are beside themselves. Wiggy is lining up the great and the good to crawl all over Palgrave?s Golden Treasury. Calliope here I come. Thank god for the heritage industry. Thank god for Blair sending us to war, I think it really helps to sell Byron and Kipling. There?s something delightful about bloody mistakes, they do shift books in almost every direction.

And ? wait for it ? we?re going to look at bursaries for The List whist we mothball the lot of them. Wiggy?s codenamed it ?Verse in Aspic?. We?ll publish nothing for a few years except regurgitated meatballs. There are some notable exceptions, but we?ll spread the word that this is a major refocus on quality and the pseuds will fall for that. They love it when we preach less is more. It helps them to digest the fact we didn?t settle on them. If no one gets in, everyone?s happy.

As for the disciplinary, picture this, there I was in my best Anderson & Sheppard looking like Jeremy Irons but with a grin like someone had stuffed a volume of Milton up my jacksy and I?d squeezed down a few Daiquir?s over lunch to help lubricate the meeting, and we sat there chewing over the figures and god help me he mentioned that crime, film and music had dropped 43%. I had to clench my buttocks to stop myself farting with laughter. The whole thing simply effervesced and when I imparted the news about mothballs and meat stew he was beside himself, the old barrow boy, counting the units and he almost yelled ?bugger the stock, let?s flog the dead.? You?d be delighted that I kept a straight face and remarked that it was a very disappointing time for the rest of the arts list and that I was happy to bring something to the table with our rights income. It was all over in 10 minutes and he had to dash to CILIP for a meeting with the Leagues of the Living Dead.

I even managed to write a few postcards at my desk, just to keep my hand in.

Your chief mortician

Albie
Deputy Poetry Editor
Castell & Castell


tags: letters?from?our?editor

To: Albert D Sump From: Donald Trask Re: Poetry Audit 2006

After last month?s Publishing Development Meeting it has become apparent that margins and sales have slipped further from 2002?s performance. I?m concerned that the poetry list isn?t making any real contribution to our overall profits and I?d like to [...]]]> Albert D Sump

To: Albert D Sump
From: Donald Trask
Re: Poetry Audit 2006

After last month?s Publishing Development Meeting it has become apparent that margins and sales have slipped further from 2002?s performance. I?m concerned that the poetry list isn?t making any real contribution to our overall profits and I?d like to initiate a review with you and Malcolm. Could you please assess the list?s contribution to profit over the last 36 months? I?d like you to split this into first year sales and subsequent sales of new books, and separate out rights income and reprint sales. Can you also please talk to Peter about the stock situation and report back on the stock valuation for poetry, too? We may need to embark on a white sale to improve the balance sheet.

Ask Bob in Finance to give you a hand with the figures. I think for the moment we had better cease any further commissioning and wait until we?ve got to grips with the money. Could you come up with some suggestions as to how we maintain our position as the UK?s premier poetry publisher whilst we freeze the list? Perhaps we could run some sabbatical funding for the authors? Something to keep them quiet.

Whilst I write this note, which I?m copying to Sarah in HR, I?m a little disappointed in your performance this year. You?ve only attended two Senior Management Group meetings in the last six months and, without prejudicing your report, I?m aware that the new poetry titles have failed to break even and are making a loss. We clearly need to improve performance all round, Albert. Nothing is sacrosanct in the business. Let?s make time to assess your performance each month over the summer and reach a view together about your future work. Talk to Sally and book a monthly meeting with me. Just a 20 minute slot. Can you please stop writing postcards to everyone who submits to us? I can?t see that this is helping the business in any conceivable way.

Yours
Donald
CEO
Castell & Castell
cc Sarah Price

11 November 2006

Dear Donald,

Thank you for your memo dated 24 June 2006, I?ve only just returned from Barcelona, please accept my apologies for the tardiness of this reply. I think it?s worth pointing out that rights revenue from the list has increased by 41% in the last twelve months. We?re nailing everyone we can for quoting our content and especially for anthologising. I?ll split that income out in my report so that you can see that this vital exploitation of our content is the real basis of the list?s ongoing strength. It?s also worth pointing out that Malcolm and I have dropped twenty-six poets in the last thirty-six months, as part of our drive for increased profitability. I don?t think we?ll see a rapid return to 2002?s performance, but I am confident that through further rationalisation and a wastage exercise of the kind you describe we can improve margins still further. Poetry is a long game and we are only now beginning to see the benefits of Charles? 1980s commissioning.

I?m sorry you?re unhappy with my performance, since I joined Castell & Castell in 1972 I?ve tried to maintain standards and I?m proud of my contribution to our company?s standing in the world of literature. Perhaps I can convince you of that when we meet. Can I ask if this will be a formal meeting as defined in our disciplinary procedures? If so, I?d like to bring an additional representative along to those meetings. I must confess I?m a little shocked at the note.

Yours

Albert
Deputy Poetry Editor
Castell & Castell


tags: Letters?from?our?editor

Dear ???? Sump,

My name is Clifford Guy Wislowski and with over 35 years? experience in corporate bookselling I?m writing to you now to improve your business forever. I have one simple message: I want to make you and your authors obscenely rich.

Let me introduce you to IndolentBooks.com? ? [...]]]> Albert D Sump

Dear ???? Sump,

My name is Clifford Guy Wislowski and with over 35 years? experience in corporate bookselling I?m writing to you now to improve your business forever. I have one simple message: I want to make you and your authors obscenely rich.

Let me introduce you to IndolentBooks.com? ? a new way to market your titles to millions of profligate book buyers around the world. Indolent Books? is a new kind of promotional business that utilises a massive multiplayer online game centred upon a book shop known as Indolence?. Using it?s wide-ranging social network of customers, booksellers, reps, writers and reading groups, players will gain access to the best books in any given genre, be able to build libraries of exceptional content, talk to your authors and take part in running and attending book launches, promotions and much, much more.

Players can also opt to run the shop, help manage its finances and sales campaigns, hire and fire staff, help to break new books with some wild gossiping while shelf stacking or simply dump stock on publishers when the year-end figures look truly bad for the shareholders (I?m sure you?ll know many examples of ?best practice?).

You can have fun ratcheting up the discount and use your own MIS to get the low down on what?s selling and what?s not. Dump all those crappy genres like poetry and drama, literary fiction and more. Take part in a massive staff shout out to ?send them all back!? Watch your margins soar like Afghan kites!

Players can also bitch about the management or their own writing breaks, steal stock, lie to customers about availability and generally be bad ass booksellers. They can even grouch about Amazon and the supermarkets stealing their business. Or they can be solid gold good guys and support major corporates like you! Imagine any scenario and play it out at Indolent Books, and all the while watch your books sell and sell.

As you can see, IndolentBooks.com is a savvy, sexy place to be, it?s naughty and nifty, it?s cruelly bad but obscenely good at selling your books to a huge number of online book buyers. Our latest visits are 8 million a month and we now have 14 million active user accounts generating a staggering 42 million hits per month. To join us, simply send us sixty copies of your new books and sign up for a publisher subscription for a mere $450 per title. Leave the rest to us and watch the dollars pour in and the returns disappear.

Don?t be a publosaur, ???? Sump, join the smart mammals now and avoid extinction!

Clifford Guy Wislowski
?The Wicked Bookseller Unleashed?

14 March 2006

Dear Clifford Guy,

My name is Albert D Sump and I was delighted to receive your mailshot today, straight from your excellent mailing house in Berkshire. I especially enjoyed the enclosed tub of mints and the desirable one-inch book, rather subtly entitled ?You Are the Number One Bestselling Publisher!? Accuracy is always gratifying, even if the pages of this gimmick were depressingly void ? a little like your business model and no doubt your intellectual life. I am writing now to reacquaint you with a business model called GumptionLackOf.com?.

Rented lists can be a wonderful way to reach customers, and I was especially happy to be contacted even if my forename was inadvertently omitted, I put this down to a further insightful allusion to 16th century courtly verse? However, this may be due to an outrageous omission on your part, failing to de-dupe and clean what unimaginable list you have purchased or ripped off from some swarming Mumbai call centre. I ought to add that seventy-two of my colleagues at Castell & Castell also received copies of your ingenious proposal, but fifty nine of those work in finance and what is affectionately know as Human Remorses.

My secretary informs me that your proposal is to do with the internet. We do not do internets at Castell & Castell. We do not do them exceptionally well. Whilst this strategy may smack of antediluvian lore and general corporate retardation, it is chiefly a feature of the massive conflicts of interest among my colleagues many of whom roll in to the office for a brief snooze between whisky sours and weekend romps with the dis-educated clones in Publicity. They can never be persuaded to collaborate, combine or indeed coalesce without months, years, of ill-attended consultation. This model has served us well in positioning us as the pre-eminent trade publisher of our time, unless that?s the Pinot Gris speaking.

I?m sure many publishers will be happy to part with their money and books (we love giving both away) to enjoy your wonderfully degenerative model of our trade. I can barely conceal my enthusiasm for this venture, I hope my competitors at Random House and HarperCollins quite literally eviscerate their businesses whilst pouring their pension schemes down the drain of IndolentBooks.com. However, I?m sure that they have already emptied their coffers in unsustainable advances and eye-watering discounts ? whether it be dealing with the affectionate agents at Vultures Insouciant Inc or the rampant price-slashers at BeanCans.com.

I can see a joyous digital future, Clifford, where we all invest our inheritances on gimcrack entrepreneurs like you, launder cash for online booksellers and, I truly hope, see our businesses all become virtual games centred upon the empty pages of our new number one bestseller. You go on ahead, us publosaurs are slow creatures, rush on out there to the edge, Cliff. And keep on going.

With saurian deliberations

Albert D Sump
Deputy Poetry editor
Castell & Castell

tags: Letters?from?our?editor

Dear Mr Sump,

Re: your QUALC funding application for Ghost Bullion: Mining Towns Since Thatcher: An Anthology of New Sub-Social Poetry, edited by Barry Swabb.

I?m writing to draw attention to our new regional, local and international strategy paper ?Ending Up with Lincolnshire Art? this has pointed towards a new joined up [...]]]> Pig Farming

Dear Mr Sump,

Re: your QUALC funding application for Ghost Bullion: Mining Towns Since Thatcher: An Anthology of New Sub-Social Poetry, edited by Barry Swabb.

I?m writing to draw attention to our new regional, local and international strategy paper ?Ending Up with Lincolnshire Art? this has pointed towards a new joined up strategy for ?needs-based bilateral community appraisal mechanisms, skills-focussed, with wider retention potential for displaced and politico-economic poly-social accommodation with a view to creating a positive cultural exchange for life term non-workers, centred upon alternative ideals of well-being and the international standing of east Lincolnshire as a centre for ecology and coastal art.? As Sir Terence wrote earlier this year in his groundbreaking strategy paper for DCMS:

?Moving from the counter argument of further arts proliferation, and not least necessitated by the less implicit or even reductive establishment of wider support and reception, this move towards judgement, sensibility and appraisal has long term sustainability at its heart. It is deeply engaged and engaging. It reaffirms the non-redundancy of creativity in a measured, quantifiable, imploring definiteness. My argument is for an enrichment of the global moment, for a resurgence of judgement and choice, selection and invigoration, the centring and alignment of creativity for our economic deviation and, indeed, the global gravity of this new age of long term golden disbursement. It is now an age of superior digital congruence.? See ?Fixed Forums for Change: The Binary of Lethargy?, section 45.6.8.

We have also identified, in line with COBAC?s national arts strategy, a three point plan ?to support the digitisation of the digital infrastructure, for all arts-based digital community programmes of new media outlets, especially to virtually support the digital positioning of radical outreach programmes for a sustainable media-rich, multi-platform delivery system, or systems, necessary for the twenty-first century and all of its manifest rich-media cartographies.?

We have also just examined the findings of ArtScope II, commissioned by DigiNeed and Ventrax Arts Consulting, and the outcomes identified pointed to further need for ?multiple enhancements to more deliverable literary digital groves, alternative media plasticity and modular peer-based quantification, not to be isolated from digital enactors and local innovators in Louth, Alford and Ingoldmells.? This has been implemented in a further fourteen step plan, known as the Bullet Point Sonnet, in partnership with SkillsSet for the creation of 73 new jobs in Skegness to support the arts integration network, and to be headed by our Chief Executive, Melinda Cartwright-Sawyers.

It is in this context, that your funding application for ?150 has been rejected for not being in line with this year?s strategy.

There is a further Disbursements Quorum Meeting on Thursday 11 January, if you could prepare Section K22 of the form with a six year cash plan, business strategy and executive summary we can pursue an Extraordinary Summation of your bid to try and push this through. However, you will need to demonstrate arts partnering with at lease four other local/international arts corpora. Do talk to our flagship partner, Hideous Boulders, especially Robert Ludge, the Chief Executive, about coastal arts opportunities. They?re based in Boston.

It will take five months to learn the outcome. We remain committed to new poetry.

Yours sincerely
Dr Reginald Pyron
Literature Development Officer

18 December 2002

Dear Dr Pyron,

You have restored my faith in George A. Romero?s vision of arts administration.

Your language skills appear to have been caught in the tar pits of Government linguistics: a colossal form of intellectual absence combined with a seemingly endless system of witless promulgation. Perhaps you?ve already moved over to the Dark Side, the humour of your job title was not lost on me or my colleagues here at Castell & Castell. Your work is paying huge dividends; at least to the incumbents. Factory-farmed poets may well lack the flavour of free range, but who cares with such wonderful caged abundance? Swollen coffers and swelling duffers, truly Lincolnshire is the land of bounty.

Castell & Castell?s support of Barry?s bid for a feeble ?150 for editorial costs and permissions has clearly impinged on the pension deficit once again. Hang on in there, Reg, only thirty years to go before you collect the Big One. I?m sure there will be munificent oinking on the way to collect your CBE for services squandered.

Back here in the real world, where language still make its little attempts at meaning, however complex, we think it unwise to align ourselves with your ?ber-strategy. I had clearly been mistaken that the role of our government?s arts administration should be to support those involved in actually creating literature and to finance their strategies however misaligned. Despite your lack of experience, skills, knowledge, expertise or innovation, I?m sure your Board will do a much better job?in making it all work than the weary writers and publishers. I think there?s another strategy paper on that, though I might be about to wipe my arse with it as I sit writing this.

Toilet kisses
Albert
Deputy Poetry Editor
Castell & Castell

tags: Letters?from?our?editor

Dear Albert,

I?ve looked at the proofs again, these STILL aren?t right, my poems are still all misspelt. I really must say I don?t think it?s my responsibility to check the spellings, don?t you bother reading stuff at Castell & Castell ? I read everything for The Snood Review. Please correct them this [...]]]> Albert

Dear Albert,

I?ve looked at the proofs again, these STILL aren?t right, my poems are still all misspelt. I really must say I don?t think it?s my responsibility to check the spellings, don?t you bother reading stuff at Castell & Castell ? I read everything for The Snood Review. Please correct them this time AND READ THE BOOK. ARRGHHH. I think the periods are too large in this font, and you?ve left some periods in italics, they need to all be roman periods. Are the italics too large, though? I think they could be reduced by about one hundredth of an inch or whatever that is in leading and dropped below the level of the other text, the bottom line thingy or whatever it?s called, it all rests on it a little bit and it tricks the eye. I don?t like it. I really must say I don?t like this font at all. Can you get rid of the squiggly thing on the ?g?. You really should try Palatino or Times, they?re my preference, what on earth is wrong with what I gave you as a print out. I?ve spoken to my friend Ronald who used be a professional typesetter, he says you?re doing it all wrong, too. Ronald also says that you could have used my print outs to make the book anyway which would have saved a lot of time. Apparently the dot matrix sheets can be REDUCED. I was holding the proofs up to my window and noticed that some pages don?t align at the top? If I turn them upside down the bottoms don?t match either. Can you PLEASE make sure that all the poems line up at the bottom and the top. I think it?s silly to have blank pages in the book, let?s just run the contents and acknowledgements on and get rid of all the blanks and those at the back. Ronald says any printer can produce a book of 81 pages, I?m not cutting ANYTHING and DO NOT put blank pages in the back. The title page CAN go on the left, there?s no reason not to. Please move all the quotations top right and italicize them. I?ve used a ruler to check the spaces between words and they?re all different where you?ve justified the text, can you make all the spaces between words EXACTLY the same. Take out all hyphens, too. I don?t like the font size. Make it smaller. Make the headings italic and center them. Change the book from 38 lines per page to 22 lines per page, except on ?The Burmese Breakfast? where you can make it 45 lines, this must fit on one page, but don?t decrease the leading. Center poems on the page. The letter ?e? looks odd, if you are sticking with Bembo or whatever it is, can you change all instances of the letter ?e? for Palatino. I much prefer the ?e? there. For the titles you?ve used upper and lowercase throughout the book, please use uppercase as per my manuscript. I?ve never bought any of your books, but if this is house style, I do not like house styles; they are restrictive for writers. I don?t like the ornament thing, the wiggly shape, can we change that wiggle for something less silly like a period. Please, please, please get this right this time, I do not like wasting my time on this stuff. Put all the page numbers on the LEFT. I?m sorry you?ve set the notes in something like a sixteenth of an inch. They?re too small, and must be a bit bigger, one squidgy bit up. Take out ?The Earth?s Old Business? and ?Pasternak?s Glee? replace those with ?Shy Moon? and ?South of the Rockies Once Again?. Move ?Benkelman?s Glee? to page 45, ?Omaha Sunset? to page 56, ?Maureen?s Cat? to page 71, ?Vater? to page 5, ?Utah is Dead? to page 44. Looking at these I think the commas are all too large. Make the commas smaller. The bold bits are too bold, make them less bold. Are these proper italics? The cover you showed me was stupid, it looks like those hideous things you see in bookshops everywhere. I do not like it. Change that to the picture I SUPPLIED of the lawn in my garden back in Colorado, keep the lawn in the center of the cover, everyone loves my lawn. My reading is next Thursday at Bonnet?s bookshop in Iowa City, please have the books there ON TIME. I presume Castell & Castell can manage that!

Yours
Tyler
Englewood

3 September 2003

Dear Tyler,

I do sympathise. I can see it must be fantastically difficult to keep a sense of proportion about our design and editing standards, especially when your own skills and indeed persona are so sadly withered and etiolated. You do have an eye for design and typography. However, I think it must be the one you poked out when you last tried eating with a knife and fork.

I had hoped that your mountainous ego might help you to coast through the publishing cycle, especially when it was matched so well with what I presume is paraphilic infantilism, but I can?t risk hand holding any further. Yours might be a soiled hand after all.

I can see now that your personal inadequacies, something you have in surprising abundance, have regrouped to hijack this project. It was, like democracy in China, always a long shot. I?ll have to bow to your judgement that this book is simply not ready for publication with Castell & Castell and redirect you to your local Xerox where professional Ronald can help you uncrease and photocopy your manuscript and staple the sheets together for your rapidly diminishing readership.

Indeed, the book is not ready for your reading in Iowa City. In fact, not ready for anyone, any time, anywhere. Not this century. Not in Bembo. Not sumptuously designed and printed on Vancouver Cream bookwove between the delicate mint green endpapers and boards of a fine Castell & Castell hardback. Not available from bookshops throughout North America. Not ready for our agents at Frankfurt. Not ready for our publicists to work on. Not ready for Oprah. Not ready for Borders, or Barnes & Noble. It?s so far from ready, I can only see you as a diminishing blot in the archives of our business, a footnote, just like mine here, cancelling your contract and tipping your author file into the shredder.

Adeiu, adieu, adieu,

Albert D Sump
Deputy Poetry Editor
Castell & Castell

Beloved Albert,

I shall be reading at Crowborough Library in a newly-commissioned piece called ?The Garden Chronicles?, I am accompanied by Jay May and Pauline Henchley-Murton on mandolin and Javanese flute. Do please consider coming along and giving us your beautiful and kind support, it will be a magical evening! Our dearest Bernice [...]]]> Albert

Beloved Albert,

I shall be reading at Crowborough Library in a newly-commissioned piece called ?The Garden Chronicles?, I am accompanied by Jay May and Pauline Henchley-Murton on mandolin and Javanese flute. Do please consider coming along and giving us your beautiful and kind support, it will be a magical evening! Our dearest Bernice at ACE South East has offered us a grant for two performances in the Readers? Gallery next to Crime Fiction and Romance. If you come early you can borrow stools from the Information Pod, let Cynthia know on the desk. Do please let Humphrey Staines know if you plan to attend the event, he is looking after access to the building and can provide directions and disabled parking stickers. We cannot promise stools or bean bags for everyone!

I am so humbled to have won third prize in the Wadhurst Poetry Competition on the theme of weaving. Do please read my poem ?The Worst Wife?s Weft?. The judges described it as ?a delicious incantation to coir matting.? As a result of my Writers? Grant from Bernice, I have written a new pamphlet coming out from Infanta in Rye: The Polished Sloop contains my sequence on 18th century pilchard fishing. It is illustrated with woodcuts by local artist Herbert Ruhr.

Here for your delight is a new piece just accepted by Galleon Surge in Pevensey.

The Pygmy Snail

All night the local star field poured its dream
The glob and rib of panthercap and lilac bell
The florid turkeytail has risked the apple tree, so nude and calm,
The broom wave shivering yet to swell.

?I pare my soft pink sails to seek the dog fox true? he saith,
There his sated aim is built, there he draws his skirts so tight
There upon the rust leaf mould, the pock and twist of sultry pear,
Where Lara?s ankles painted cruel the moth gilt night.

The moon dove leached, the garden sings its solid fostering.
The day snail prinks his tidy art to ride a pale leviathan
And leads his coruscated map towards the mushroom ring
To find these jaded frozen blebs.

We see him too, his alien oil, his gelding balm,
They cannot know his mind, the liquid thought so blind.
He is our treacle creature
Asserting daisy deities.

I am enclosing a new manuscript for you, too! Hermione?s Incantation deals with the trauma of rural stooking and offers a magical escape for the young daughter of the vicar as she deals with menstruation and her fear of angels and big horses.

I am a retained tutor with The Poetry Troupe and shall be running a workshop on ?Beauty and Bearings in Verse? this month. I would love to have you as a guest speaker at this event. Do let me know.

Bless you,

Hermione Cheremisinova
Battle / Paris

6 March 2008

Dear Ms Chermisinova,

I?m at a loss for words. However, this is largely due to my dentures being glued tight with so much syrup and treacle. Was this sent in jest or have you been immersed in a tank of guileless sincerity for the past month? After reading this I felt I?d swallowed a tub of Hermesetas. Beloved Hermesetas, naturally. Please try adding some vinegar to your life. Just a quart or two.

I must confide you?ve caught me at a bad moment, just when I honestly thought I needed an ocean of sucrose in my life I find I?m all stocked up with Tate + Lyle. But thank you for sharing your unctuous verses with me and peppering them with such generous and genuine blessings, they?ll surely come in useful when I expire from an overdose of benevolence.

Sadly, I cannot offer you a contract, I cannot even offer you any real advice. You are clearly already adept at monstrous snivelling, though perhaps you could take banality one step further? Could the wonderful Bernice please take a break from wasting my tax payments and send you on a Skillset course for the terminally lurid.

Give it up.

Ever your beautiful

Albert D Sump
Deputy Poetry Editor
Castell & Castell

Dear Oberleutnant Sump,

I don’t know what you mean precisely by ‘cannot publish you’, I was instructing you to publish me, you oaf. Who the fuck do you think you are? Just because you’ve had one crappy book out with Drone Press and that cowboy runt, Rogers. Could it be that you misunderstood [...]]]> Albert

Dear Oberleutnant Sump,

I don’t know what you mean precisely by ‘cannot publish you’, I was instructing you to publish me, you oaf. Who the fuck do you think you are? Just because you’ve had one crappy book out with Drone Press and that cowboy runt, Rogers. Could it be that you misunderstood my note, you cretin? Perhaps you considered that ‘my audience’ is not the febrile milt you now seem to specialise in with your celebrity yodelling and boy band gurning acts. Unlike the proto-nubile snots you seem to be concentrating on publishing now, hugging their chins like simpering apes from every weekend review, I can actually string a sentence together with out using erm and uhuh as a conjunction. Perhaps I went to the wrong school, given my mater and pater chose Repton and not Sherborne? Perhaps I did not study léchement de cul to your required level of expertise while up at Merton? Or is it that you’re doing too much charlie down the Groucho to see beyond the end of your wet southern snout. I’ve done more for poetry in this country than you and your snivelling wretches could possibly comprehend. Perhaps you need some instruction? Do you need LESSONS, Sump? Have you never managed to get beyond Dr Seuss? Did poetry stop with that sagging lump, Mundsley; I realise your list diverted irretrievably into pig slops from 1972? Try finding some real talent this century, you clod. You’ll never work again in this part of the country, Dear Albumen. Or is it Albie to your brindled friends? I’ll make sure no festival, no journal, will ever take another grotty tin-eared gelatinous verse. You’re finished.

Affectionately,

Ron Vetch
Nottingham

3 October 2002

Dear Dr Vetch,

Lovely to hear from you, I hope life is more bearable now you’re taking the Remeron. And have you managed to get the fissure treated? Thank you so much for your letter which I read between huge yawns on the way to the Athenaeum. I’m afraid I still can’t offer you publication, despite your gracious semi-erudite instruction. We don’t do self-obsessed gobshites at Castell & Castell.

You’re clearly under some strain, Ron, is it all too much trying to muster those finicky outputs for the RAE? Are you still getting your students to help there, Google Scholar is marvellous isn’t it? I feel another slimy paper on your pals beckons. Could it be that the weight of your ego is bearing down a little much on that titanic squid of a body? Perhaps you were one over the eight again when you wrote. Do please cut back on the vat of stout a night regime. It will only make the impotence problem worse, you know.

I don’t think the reading public are quite ready to take on another eighty pages about your life force, jissom or Jungian bed manoeuvres. Whilst this pseudo-psychic tripe may have served you well on the Survivors circuit, no one this side of 1972 really gives a shit. Good luck persuading the great and good to abandon me. Why not start with the Mothers’ Union or your local Ladbrokes or that long suffering wine club?

Indifferently,

Albert D Sump
Deputy Poetry Editor
Castell & Castell

Sir!

I just don?t get it with these fleas and maggots in the festivals, they just don?t recognise serious art, they just ignore me all the time, Albie. Even Sedgeley turned me down last week saying I wasn?t quite their thing; I?ve read with C.K. Williams. I?ve read with Doty. I knew fucking [...]]]> Albert

Sir!

I just don?t get it with these fleas and maggots in the festivals, they just don?t recognise serious art, they just ignore me all the time, Albie. Even Sedgeley turned me down last week saying I wasn?t quite their thing; I?ve read with C.K. Williams. I?ve read with Doty. I knew fucking Brodsky. What is their thing? It?s all bloody zimmer frames and pneumoconiosis up there, isn?t it? They hate me. If I was a Polish detainee with gargantuan ?tache and a limp they?d have me set up in some City of Refuge shite scribbling about potatoes and mining. It?s that Literature Officer, the one with Moebius Syndrome. He?s behind this. All he ever wants is Hegley. Hegley this, Hegley that. I can play the fucking ukulele, you know. I can do voices. But I?m serious. I?m real. They can?t take the depth. It?s the German thing. Just because I translated Jandl. Just because I deal with death. Death and truth. Get me a reading and I?ll sell books, Albie. I know I can shift fucking tons at a reading. Tons.

Have you sent the review copies out again, I rang Victor but he said he?s never had it? Did you get one to Bill, Sarah, Denise? Why is no one writing about me, Albie? I?ve won all the bloody prizes, the Latvians love me, I get fucking streets named after me in Jūrmala, but still nothing happens here. It?s that vulgar oik in Droylsden, pulling all the strings, he?s working with the Celts, locking me out. The twat told me I?d never work again in this country. Even Cruella is in his pocket; she rejected me last week, it?s a fucking conspiracy. I can?t get any readings. I?ve rung that bloody woman in Shipton for a reading, she never returns calls. I must have rung her twenty times. I?ve emailed her, too. I told her she was a phoney, all she?s interested in is poems about laundry and blancmange. I?ll expose them all, Albie. Can you send the review copies out again? Can you ring around for me and get me some readings? I?ll even do Suffolk if you can get the inbreds to sort something. Please answer this. I?ve left more than twenty voicemails now. Can we do the Selected?

Avanti,
Robbie
Okeford Fitzpaine

11 November 2008

Dear Robbie,

Sorry I?ve not returned the calls. My secretary did mention you?d left some messages. We lost track, there were so many. Please try and group your thoughts before phoning or writing, it?s terrifically difficult to keep up with twenty or more emails a day. I only gave you my home number for emergencies. Stella tells me you?ve been talking to the children about the Gro?e Todessonne. It?s not on, Robbie.

Please don?t be too distressed, readings really don?t matter and the ones publicity did arrange were a little concerned after your last appearance ? shouting at the old dears about Mahler really won?t cut it; who cares if Adorno had links to Mossad? You?ll get a name, Robbie.

We?ve never made money out of readings though, but I do understand that you want to unleash the new ?Leichenquartett? on a live audience. Have you tried talking to Pauline at Craigmore Arts Centre? They?ve been doing things with the Wordsworth in some outreach programme, something which avoids the sheep, Shelley and solitary. I know they?re a little passionate, but that?s a northern thing, they feel left out up there, all they?ve got is nuclear power stations and oil spills. Their idea of culture is stuck in 1983 with Boy George and Mikey Craig. It?s all hair braids and cowboy hats. Don’t let it get to you. It’s a long game.

I can?t act as your agent, Robbie. I have lots of postcards to write just now rejecting the scurf, but I?ll talk to sales and see what?s happening on the book, we just can?t persuade anyone to take an article on it right now. Publicity said the word was you were astringent.

Last time I looked we?d sold eight copies of Building Disgust, but that?s not bad for your first year?s sales. It?s up on Belligerence, though the returns were awful there, but the timing was unlucky, who knew about the bombings?

Chin up and all that,

Albert

Deputy Poetry Editor
Castell & Castell

Hey Man,

You think you?re smart. I?m gonna cut you up, Bud. I?ll spread this everywhere you jackass. You don?t know nothing. You publish shit. I think I?ll die of boredom. I think everyone in Canada would love to know about you. You don?t understand nothing. You fake. You?re just fake, a total [...]]]> Albert

Hey Man,

You think you?re smart. I?m gonna cut you up, Bud. I?ll spread this everywhere you jackass. You don?t know nothing. You publish shit. I think I?ll die of boredom. I think everyone in Canada would love to know about you. You don?t understand nothing. You fake. You?re just fake, a total fake. Faker. Fake ass. I?ll write to everyone you publish on Facebook and let them know what you?re like. You?re totally dead. I?ll give you one chance right just read this poem and you?ll get it or I will do this, man. I mean it.

Eat me, Bruce

?And each morning I?d take the window
back to the glass man?

Man is man

O man, I get up in your shitty shit
we?re in it, baby, let me tell you now how it is
I can?t take your goddamn face, you are a window on the dirt
I look out of the 4th floor up East 25th and see the dirty sun
I see the pimps and I know I eat you
I eat you and fly with my bellyful over the dirt
Even the dirt is dirt, I eat you, I eat women
The dirty women downstairs, the dirty women upstairs
I eat the dirt and I know while the music played
We loved it, loved it out into the middle of the dirt
That?s it, you said, that?s where it happens, there, and you point
and I look out at the old Lincolns sliding past Izzy and his shoes
sliding past Evo?s and Cazelli?s
I see the dirt and I eat it and the music kept playing
O yeah out into the dirt the dirt the dirt

> Yo Albert,
>
> I didn?t realise who you were, man! Wow, wow, wow. I publish as well. Check
> out my blog there?s stacks of writers on there. Would you be interested in my
> manuscript? I just can?t stop wrigint. I?m part of a movement called Canadian
> Scag Beats. I read at open mics everywhere when I?m sober.
>
> Love you, Bruce
>
> ?And each morning I?d take the window
> back to the glass man?

>> Hey Albert
>>
>> Wanna see more of my work? Checkout my Facebook profile and gimme some
>> feedback. Love to know whatya reckon to it.
>>
>> http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1361857524&ref=ts
>
> Get me, Bruce
>
> ?And each morning I?d take the window
> back to the glass man?

16 January 2007

Dear Bruce,

Is it 1969 already? Thank you so much for contacting me again on Facebook, it?s so convenient isn?t it? I?m sorry to have been unable to give you more positive feedback on your poems, if I may describe them as such. I do admire Bukowski, though you might want to consider reading beyond him, or even reading him a little more closely, though not quite so obsessively, given this has clearly led to several visits to Saskatchewan Penitentiary. Reading anything, in fact, other than Bukowski would be a good thing for you right now. Why not try The Four Horsemen? I?m sure this would have a profound effect on your grasp of poetry and may possibly help with your view of women who are frequently not dirty or indeed especially edible. I?m sure I cannot persuade you to desist in writing to all my authors on Facebook, many of whom have dropped me a line here to congratulate me on discovering you. Some of them believed you were extinct and were happy to see the unkind years rolled back to a time more innocent and depraved. I?m attaching a drink here using Booze Mail. Please spare Canada.

With fond memories

Albert D Sump
Deputy Poetry Editor
Castell & Castell

Dear Albie,

Thanks for yours. I had to suffer another squad of dullards at Maniac More, a week of rain and midges between bouts of mutton stew. It pissed down so much I got mould, especially from having to smoke outside. Everyone seems to have the physical appearance of a skip up here. [...]]]> Albert

Dear Albie,

Thanks for yours. I had to suffer another squad of dullards at Maniac More, a week of rain and midges between bouts of mutton stew. It pissed down so much I got mould, especially from having to smoke outside. Everyone seems to have the physical appearance of a skip up here. Thank god Duncan was drinking again. I think he shagged his way through the lot. Are you really cutting back on The List again? I thought old Wiggy was keen on scraping a few more centimes out of it all. Another anthology beckons, what will it be this time? I hope it?s Poems Against the Boor or Draining My Life or one of those bloody awful Forward Press anthologies on thunder or Yule-tide. I?ve just sorted the last sequence for my new snort at fame, I?ll have it ready for you in Juneish. I?m prepared for you and Wiggy to take until the 22nd century to let me have the yeas or nays. Was that your top brass on the box the other night? I?ve just had some pieces taken in Ireland but Cruella rejected everything I sent explaining I was a little too sui generis. I?m teaching at Pikey?s place in the summer. Hope you can escape from Wiggy?s clutches and come up for a few barrels.

Yours Ollie

8 February 2006

Dear Pooch,

Yes, that was The Gob avec black turtle neck on the Culture Show, I think he?s been buffing up on Beckett again, I?m sure he?s doing another OU degree between bouts of squash at Hilliard?s; all he ever blags about is the ?Centre Ground of Literature? as if it was a kind of field sport. If I hear another polo joke I think I?ll vom.

We?re having our fifteenth bloody restructure here, Lucian is insufferable given non-fiction has risen 80%, but that?s due to Loveable Fat Bloke doing loads of celebrity knob gags as he oozes his way through another incontinent biography; it?s bound to sell squazillions though. As long as I keep my mahogany desk, and my lovely Japanese prints of Pomes Penyeach, I?ll be happy.

Wiggy is away working on the New Strategy which will no doubt be like the old strategy of robbing every bugger who quotes a syllable of Old Squeaky. There?s no let up. Not sure where The List is heading, I keep writing postcards saying No to the limpets but it?s never ending. Don?t they realise it?s all sewn up? Speaking of which has Juicy been on about anything worth publishing up north? I think we?ll take something new on this year as long as it?s young, pretty and Welsh.

Groan in Finance has been complaining about the ROI which I thought was a character from a Cocteau libretto. Anyway there?s going to be a big push, the Pubic Hares in Marketing have come up with something like a national quiz on love poems with the PBS, I think I?ll do Le bleu du ciel and have done with it.

Am I still guest of horror at Lumb Bank next month? I?ll see you there. Keep me a cadaver.

Yours, Albie