“disintergration” (2020) is Mullen’s fourth poetry collection, following “curse this blue raincoat” (2017), “testimony” (2018), and “35” (2018). It is a text that shows the writer to be working at the peak of his powers.
In terms of style, each of the collections have strong similarities. However, Mullen’s acute ability to say so much with so little has never been more apparent. The individual poems, by their very nature, are both pithy and incisive and the craftsmanship displayed is truly remarkable. As a reader who has closely followed this writer’s development, I can say with authority, that the writer has evolved into one of the foremost and exciting poets in the independent poetry community.
Mullen eschews the restraints of form and structure, preferring to write with total freedom. He sees the page as a tool in itself and makes intelligent use of space to breakdown his work, and in doing so makes it that much more immediate and accessible. Those readers who claim to be unable to ‘get’ poetry, this is the work for you.
There is a muddying of the line between the poet’s own voice and experience, and that of the poet-speaker. In this way the poetry has a transient quality, and I am in awe of Mullen’s capacity to find beauty in the banal. This is perhaps most apparent in “images”, ‘like blackbirds preparing broods in colour/ you will see yourself in teardrops/ in autumnal mists/ over russet meadows/ in spider-web-december sonowflakes’. Such elegance.
There is a common theme, centred around death and rebirth – a regular juxtaposition between gravity and hope that throws light on what it is to be alive. Consider, ‘i pull out the notebooks the pen/ but the words aren’t there’ in contrast with, ‘the next day / blossom under branches/ faces in the woods’. Such peaks and troughs are a constant throughout. While Mullen writes about the end or disintergration of one relationship, he also proffers great optimism for those yet to come.
The beauty of the chapbook, is that it provides the writer with a platform to compose a series of themed and inter-related texts. In “disintergration” Mullen has taken this form of publication to new heights. It is a superb addition to the poet’s existing ouevre, that shows great development of skill and exposes a vulnerability, that was until now absent.
When I began to network with the poetry community in my local area, Ian was one of the first people I reached out to.
When did you start writing and what do you think attracted you to poetry?
Ian: I think poetry for me
initially acted as an escape and memory. My Grandfather came over from Canada
in 1937 and he became a fan of the Liverpool poets during the 60s, he saw in
them something good about communication, and tried to install that into me. I
didn’t write my serious first poem till I was about 14 and living in Bicester,
it came on the back of listening to a lot of Progressive Rock, bits of Heavy
Metal and a lot of 80s pop.
I really enjoyed the Liverpool music and the
way it used a more direct language than I had been used to growing up in rural
Oxfordshire, in my later teens such as Pete Wylie, The Christians and The
Icicle Works as I approached the end of the 80s, the sound they made, the anger
and energy that flowed through their lyrics, but also a love that I was feeling
in other music. But it was perhaps listening to Marillion, to Fish, Genesis,
Pink Floyd and Rush that first caught my ear. I remember hearing Marillion’s Misplaced
Childhood for the first time and thinking, in youthful arrogance perhaps,
that I could do that, not the music, I already had figured out that I could not
play a note on anything, but the words, the playfulness and the force of the
statement.
There was a lot of teenage angst, a
lot of poetry about girls, thankfully most of them liked it, so they told me.
But I never performed them, looking at some them now, wow they are awful, but
there is a nugget in each of them.
I think the attraction came from
there, the willingness to surrender to the application, the emotions, the word
play, the settling of a debt in a sentence. I have always thanked my
Grandfather for the love of poetry, I also think having listened to Progressive
Rock at a very young age also had a hand in it.
Can you tell me about your journey into
publication?
Long, extremally difficult, mainly
by accident.
My first poem published was in a
book called World In Crisis, (I am a couple of pages in front of the literary
giant Quentin Crisp), that was a highlight for me. After that I continued
writing but never publishing anything, never seeking to be published but
dreaming of becoming a writer and poet throughout my 20s. Work got in the way,
children came along, I was too exhausted to do anything creative, and when I
did I found I was being ridiculed for it, poetry especially, there was always a
hangover, people saying, (especially from school teachers) that it wasn’t
really a form of expression that men should do.
The accident of publication
started after I had major surgery on my spine in 2003. An old friend of mine,
my next-door neighbour when I was a child, rang me up and asked how I was, that
I hadn’t been seen for a few months. The surgery took a lot out of me,
physically and mentally, my marriage was breaking down, I was in a lot of pain,
harbouring a lot of anger at a system that had not believed me when I started
feeling the pain in my spine at 17 and was quite happy to keep telling me it
was my head.
He asked me if I wanted to go and
see Fish at the Bilston Robin that night, just to have a good time. Andrew was
the Arts Editor for the Birmingham Mail at the time, and as I sat at the
computer after the show, I thought I could write a review for him, 180 words, I
can do that. Wrote it, sent it across and he loved it, asked me to do more.
Whether you see that as accident
or providence that is how it started. It has been a hell of long journey mind
and it has taken a lot of mental bashing to get to the place I am now.
How do you think you’ve evolved as a
writer over the years?
I put together a pamphlet of
poetry in late 2003, 20 or so poems that I had written in the previous year,
Searching For An Answer it was called, I think about 30 people in the world
have it. I don’t think evolving, for me anyway is a quick process. Poetry
always came first, the anarchy of it, refusing to tie myself down to form, now
I know it was a sub-conscious decision, that I was trying to be like a hero of
mine, Jack Kerouac. Stream of conscious writing. I have tried to follow that
path to the place I am now. A wonderful Liverpool lecturer once said to me that
the more you write, the more you write. Unless I am exhausted through pain, I
try to write every day, even then sometimes the pain bleeds into the writing.
Are there any parallels you can draw with some of your
favourite artists, and the work you are producing?
The trouble I guess with reading a
lot of different genres, regardless of poetry or in prose you tend to be
influenced by them all. I am a devotee of Jack Kerouac and of Dylan Thomas, of
Amelia Lanyer, Ted Hughes, Simon Armitage, Allen Ginsberg, Carol Ann Duffy,
Edgar Allen Poe and Roger McGough, however I have tried not to be in debt to
these writers …but you cannot help succumbing. I am not sure about parallels
with poetry, that I guess is up to other people to remark upon.
Can you describe your writing process? How important is the
editing process, and is this a solo effort?
Observe, think, write it down and
move on. I don’t believe in magic
formulas; inspiration is everywhere you look. I have difficulty with editing, I
rarely do it, in my prose writing I leave that to others, I think it comes down
to the stream of conscious writing that I have always maintained. It was the
same at University, for an essay I wrote what I thought and would leave it at
that; and it seemed to work. I suffer from anxiety, the more I can keep that at
bay the better it is.
It would appear that often you blur your voice, with that
of the poet speaker, how intentional is this? Is it fair to describe some of
your work as confessional?
I think it is dreadfully important
to be the voice of your own downfall or the conductor of the revolution in your
head. A poem to me is truth, even if it a lie, the imagination is the one area
of humanity to which nothing else can touch, its capability to invent and
conceive a word to describe love has to celebrated, and if you cannot do it in
your own voice then what is the point. Even when writing from different
perspectives, from the position of a man or woman, trans, CIS or anything, you
must observe something of yourself in what you write.
Have you ever performed your poetry at a recitation or
spoken word event? If so, how does this change the dynamic of the work?
I used to perform a lot. I got
invited to a poetry seminar in Washington D.C. once, sat at the same table as
the legendary actor Mickey Rooney which was a thrill. I have done a couple of
my own nights and joined in with others. The problem I have had for the last
couple of years is stamina and pain. I cannot perform sat down; the voice isn’t
right. Bearing in mind that I have several discs missing in my spine and am on
a lot of medication I cannot stand for too long either. My legs start to go. In
some ways I find I cannot do it anymore. I would love to do more, to go and do
what I what I wanted to do at 15, health though is a bug bear.
What makes for a good poem? Can you name your favourite
writers and what draws you to them?
Truth, imagination, personality, a
capacity to embrace being the fallen human being. Sometimes it is the rhythm
that gets me, Roger McGough, my favourite Liverpool poet, makes me laugh, and
he always remembers my name for some reason. Dylan Thomas will make me weep
with his fragility and bluster, Simon Armitage’s resonance is wonderfully
self-effacing but so gentle, Kerouac sought truth, Ginsberg sought it all.
Have you ever studied creative writing? Are there any plans
to study creative writing or literature more broadly?
I haven’t, at least not since school, saying that
I did a term at University. I wrote a 3,000-word short story based in part on
my Great Uncle who was one of the first medics into Belsen during World War 2.
What are you working on at present? And what do you think
is the major spur?
At the moment I am working on my
third novel, a horror, I hope, a departure from my usual way of thinking, My
second novel comes in June next year, a sequel to 2018’s The Death of Poetry. I
have a notebook by the side of me of 14 or so ideas for books, short stories, a
couple of plays and one really large poem in the vein of Ginsberg’s Kaddish. I
have decided to spend more time writing these than going to gigs.
Would you say that you have ever suffered for your art?
A loaded
question, lol. How can you write poetry if you haven’t had your heart broken?
In some ways writing has been a cathartic feature, but it also takes you places
that you would rather not go. I found that in The Death of Poetry, a book that
came out my Nan dying. My Nan was my
biggest supporter, and when we found out that the breast cancer had spread, we
knew then she didn’t have long. My Dad told me to write the novel that I always
said I was going to do; I think he was trying to take my mind of my Nan’s rapid
deterioration. I wrote solidly for 24 days, almost completing it before she
died. On the day she died there was terrible gale and I remember shouting
outside of my front door, calling on whatever forces in the Universe had
conspired to make her ill, to let her go. At that point I felt her go, it was a
seamless horrible moment, but it gave me the strength to finish the book, I
needed to finish it for her.
Are you involved in the poetry community? It appears to me
as an active poet, that the chapbook and journal world is thriving right now,
do you submit or would you consider submitting in this way?
Unfortunately, I am not, mainly
because for the last 15 years or so I have been immersed in writing about the
art in Liverpool and that has always taken up so much of my time.
How do you measure success?
By finding out that I am still
breathing when I open my eyes.
How do you feel about describing yourself as a poet?
It feels kind of rebellious, I
enjoy that. I find there is still some inverted snobbery in some people’s minds
when it comes to poetry. I had a teacher once in my final year of school who
sent me my report card for the year and on it she wrote that she liked reading
my poetry, but I had to learn that I would not make a living out of it. I
walked the two miles back to school, slammed it on her desk and told her that
was not the point. It felt good to be angry at the suggestion.
Do you have any other ventures going aside from your
creative writing?
Unfortunately I am kind of boring,
I read, I listen to music, I watch the occasional hour of television and I
watch plays at the theatre…I used to go and watch Man City play, have been a
supporter since 1976, but these day the journey is too much and the cold hurts.
Other than that, I have nothing but what is in front of me, and that takes up a
lot of time.
What was the last album you listened to? What was the last
gig you went to?
I listen to music every day, I
find it a necessity, it is calming, it stirs the imagination. I try to review
an album a day but sometimes I find the time gets away from me. I recently had the pleasure of listening to
Amy Studt’s new album, The Happiest Girl In The Universe, very cool, and
the American Blues man Mike Zito pay tribute to Chuck Berry, incredible
versions. The last gig I went to was last night, Midge Ure at the Philharmonic
Hall. It was shrouded in a bit of sadness though as I knew after that I had
only about 5 live gigs that I will be attending, after over 1300 gig reviews
over the years I have decided to step back from that particular part of my
reviewing, it is taking too long to recover after a gig, and as I near 50 I
don’t want to be being sick for days just because I have gone out.
