BRYN FORTEY

A TAXI DRIVER ON MARS

by Bryn Fortey

212 Caerleon Road, Newport, South Wales NP19 7GQ

Outlaw Chapbooks Press Limited Edition

Bryn Fortey has known me long enough to know that science fiction poetry isn't my natural reading habitat. But only a fool or a pedant would deny that there's immense satisfaction to be had following Bryn into the strange worlds he creates: a narrator witnessing the death of a massiccia on planet Safari, 'twin suns filtered through clotted skies' in 'Chaser & Chased', the cabbie in the title poem who teaches himself the history of all four World Wars and The Rock & Roll Years because 'there's not much call for taxis on Mars' (made me think of the much-missed poet Dave Church), or the fact-finding extra-terrestrial in a pub drinking beer in 'Talking to the Alien'. It's 'the only thing that makes life bearable/ on this godforsaken planet,' the alien says, mired in his loneliness. There are two poems in this chapbook that deserve special mention, however. In 'So' the narrator attempts to make a robot boy to replace his own, after, we assume, a tragedy. And 'Satellite L'Amour' is a poem of intense feeling and bold imagery: 'one day I will emerge/ at the very moment of creation/ to explode and expand in a turbulent mass/ spinning around a brand new sun.' I knew Bryn was good. He always has been. But that good?! (BH)

ANDREW DARLINGTON

BRYN FORTEY AND

THE DEATH OF BLIND LEMON JEFFERSON

Book Reviews of:

‘I GUESS THAT’S WHY THEY CALL IT THE BLUES’

& ‘WHEN I MENTIONED THE BEATS’
by BRYN FORTEY

(Outlaw Chapbook Press, January and February 2020)

Limited editions from: 212 Caerleon Road, Newport, South Wales NP19 7GQ

You need long-distance vision to see things up close. We are all our own stories. Poems just say things more effectively, considering every possible letter, making each pulse count. Bryn was never a joiner, now we’re all lost in a time of separations. When a writer becomes part of a movement, when that time goes cold, they get stranded with it, the Beats are beaten, the Mersey Poets run dry on ribs of mud, Rappers do TV-ads for casinos. They go from movement, to motionless. Bryn Fortey and me started out sketching poems like this one, I’ll not ask if you remember it, I don’t think either of us will ever forget it. Some of these poems go back to ‘Global Tapestry Journal’, ‘Quarry’ or Bryn’s own ‘Outlaw’, others are from now-sites such as ‘Ramingo’s Porch’ or ‘Bradlaugh’s Finger’.

His Blues poems cleave to narrative, lopped-off into concise lines, telling the Chet Baker life, or Sonny Stitt ‘playing second fiddle to heroin addiction’. Arthur ‘Big Boy’ Crudup who lives in a packing case, Bo Diddley who is ‘the baddest cat in town’, haunted by juke-joint rhythms and forgotten photographs. The Beat poems tell tales in dialogue, although they cross-contaminate. In an argument with Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones), Bryn sides with his wronged wife Hettie, in a gesture of left-handed solidarity. Or he posthumously threatens David Meltzer for steamrollering his own ‘cool but not cold’ poem about Lester Young with his huge weighty bio-tome, ‘keep out of dark alleyways’ he darkly warns David, ‘don’t think dying in 2016 will save you.’ Without Kerouac there’d perchance be no Bukowski, no Selby, no Carver… no me, no Bryn. That’s another ongoing discussion. It doesn’t necessarily require truth, just some soft painless lies. Not all poets make it big, some just get high on the smell of the blackest ink slinking across chapbook pages. That’s enough. Sure, there are what-if poems of other outcomes. Bryn sends postcards from other continuums too, he has the necessary long-distance vision. But we’ve had the loyalty card for some time, here are two more stamps to go in it. Let the rave-up never end.

 ANDREW DARLINGTON

BRYN FORTEY

 

OPTIONS  

Prof poured himself a shot of rotgut from the bottle he kept hidden in the one desk drawer he was able to lock, drinking it quickly in a single throat burning gulp.

     Why was he here?

     Why had he specialised in Nephrology?

     All he’d wanted to do, really, was write poetry. Page after page of free form rage, from heart and guts; but he’d had the hopes and ambitions of his parents to live up to, and the prompting of educationists who wanted the credit for another successful pupil. At first the two extremes had coexisted together well, earning him something of a Small Press reputation while not interfering with his studies, but he found himself devoting less and less time to poetry as his career progressed, until now: a secret drinker with creative writing a long lost memory.  

     The next patient was coming in.

     “Ah, Mr Fortey, good to see you again, have a seat. Are you still passing water okay? No problems? Good! There has been a small further reduction in your kidney function and though it hasn’t yet reached a critical stage, I do think it’s time to consider your options...”

That would be the Beat version. For a horror anthology, it could be more like...

The Professor had a long East European sounding surname that most people had difficulty pronouncing, so they just used his academic title. Before Mr Fortey had come in he had taken a drink from the bottle of AB+ he kept locked in his desk drawer. It was nowhere near as good as a stream pulsing from a pierced vein, but had to suffice until circumstances allowed him another kill.

     The patient was a gentleman in his eighties, but his blood would still be as fresh as ever. He forced himself to stop looking hungrily at the old man’s neck.

     “Your options are unfortunately limited, Mr Fortey. Some people go the dialysis route while others prefer to let nature take its course. There are pros and cons for both.”

     Was that a little throbbing he could see, imagining his teeth tearing through the man’s throat, slicing the flesh and puncturing the vein, gorging on the life-giving liquid that spurted in scarlet glory.

     “Dialysis would give you longer but with a reduced quality of life...”

Or, in a science fiction magazine...

MaraQ, the medical exchange practitioner from Altare 1V, rested on his/her memory air bubble, while conducting an interview with the Earthling who had come up from the planetary surface to join him/her in the orbiting consulting station.

     How did they manage with such short life spans? he/her wondered. MaraQ’s species had an expectancy of at least three hundred Earth years. This patient, in his eighties, would still be young on Altare1V, but not by his own Earth standards

     “If you decide against dialysis, Mr Fortey, your quality of life can continue unchanged, but you will not gain the extra time the procedure can offer. We would of course continue to monitor you and offer what help we can. The decision is yours and I suggest you take your time making it. Maybe talk it over with your family...”

Maybe a personal memoir might be more suitable...  

When the hospital called me in for an earlier appointment than had been originally set, it was obvious that my most recent blood tests had given cause for concern, and so it proved to be.

     “There has been only small fluctuations during the time we have been monitoring you,” said Professor -----, showing me a graph on his computer screen, “but as you can see, your kidney function is gradually moving towards critical levels. I think it’s time to start considering your options.”

     Having correctly guessed what this appointment would be about, I had already spent a lot of time doing just that. Dialysis would enable me to live a little longer, but at a reduced quality of life, and seemed to me best suited to younger people who still had hopes of a lifetime ahead of them. In my eighties now, I have lived a life of many extremes. I have experienced both great and little tragedies, offset by moments of satisfaction and happiness. My choice is to continue as I am, being monitored and helped by all means; trying to make the best out of life that I can until chronic failure catches up with me, which hopefully won’t be for a whole yet.

     Professor ----- was not surprised by my decision, and even my family are reluctantly accepting my point of view.     

   

****************copyright Bryn Fortey 

   

BRYN FORTEY is based in Newport, South Wales. His poetry has been published widely. As a short story writer in a number of genres, which are sometimes audaciously combined in one story, he is the author of Merry-Go-Round and Compromising The Truth, both on Alchemy Press. Bryn is also acknowledged -- at Bard Towers if nowhere else -- as the editor of Target and Outlaw, small-press magazines of exceptional quality. He has recently begun assembling a selection of his works in a series on Outlaw Chapbooks Press.

BRYN FORTEY

I GUESS THAT'S WHY THEY CALL IT THE BLUES by Bryn Fortey
(Outlaw Chapbooks Press)
212 Caerleon Road, Newport, South Wales, NP19 7GQ, UK

This book is a small delight. 17 poems about the blues by a great human repository of stories about black American music. Here we can read about Chuck Berry, Charley Patton, Arthur 'Big Boy' Crudup, Bessie Smith and Howlin' Wolf. Important names to people versed (if you'll pardon the pun) in musical history. (Crudup, for those not so well-versed, wrote 'That's All Right Mama', which Elvis Presley covered. One of those men died in penury.)

Other characters populate the book, men and women only someone with an expert's compendious knowledge would know: Blind Lemon Jefferson, Lil Hardin (who married, and divorced, Louis Armstrong), Earl Zebedee Hooker, the Mound City Blue Blowers. Each poem brings a different player or band to life in a few short stanzas, telling their stories, recreating the cultural atmosphere of the times they lived in. If you love music, it's irresistible.

But there's more here. Poems about memory and how music crosses and intersects it. Which is part of its magic: put a piece of music on, and if it's important, you will leap back instantly to where you were the first time you heard it. That's the subject of what I think is the best poem, 'Honky Tonk':

more years have passed
than I like to count
and I don't know where you are
or even if you're still alive

As someone who was first published by Bryn Fortey 21 years ago in his print magazine 'Target', I had a real thrill of nostalgia when this chap arrived in the post the other day. It was better, somehow, listening to the postman open the front gate and push your letters through the door, seeing a handwritten envelope from an editor or another poet on your mat. Bradlaugh's Finger is a tribute to those more maverick times, in a way.

There's no price listed at the top of this review because I GUESS THAT'S WHY THEY CALL IT THE BLUES is free to anybody who wants it. All you have to do is drop the author a line at the address above and ask for a copy. I'd do that, if I were you. It's an excellent read. (BH)