rejection consistent

thinking

of producing

monthly magazine

called Craig

aMoNgsT PoEtRy

it is proposed

to have

some ToPlEsS

photos of me

in candid poses

and a Recipe

no investors

yet

dragon's den

next week

fuck

Cultivator of Weeds

Thank you for nothing,

If you met my dad,

You'd be utterly in awe,

He's 82,

And worth a million of you,

Defined by his nation,

Born in a haystack,

Betrayed by his station.

In life,

 Never a more honest person,

Hard-working, humble,

Gentle and gentile,

Who always would stumble,

Into the heart of the matter,

Through verbal debate,

A reading of books,

A concept of fate,

Or simply,

Appreciating experience,

More being less,

But Holy God,

I digress,

Thank you for nothing,

It's my bad,

I was writing to thank you,

For the beautiful balloon ride,

But was soon derided,

For too many lines,
starting with Capitals.

well capital for you,
i tip my cap to you,
cap my enthusiasm,
insert your cap,
And brace yourself,
if you met my dad,

you'd appreciate,

my digression,

And sense of fate...

WhIsPeRs Thank you Father,
For Everything,
Thank you.
Cultivator of Weeds,
For Nothing.

Furious Allegorical Wrath - Translation, Exegesis and Hermeneutics

Strange things are afoot - and while they are, and have been, I have reached several more fleeting epiphanies.

Books are being published. Writers are being read. Contemporary literature which I shat out philosophical reviews of in my internal monologue of the McEwan's Export Mid-eighties are being quoted as influences.

People are better-looking these days and this isn't a good thing.

My last poem was not my last.

I shall never have my cafe

I can only vaguely remember Steinbeck, Kafka, Camus, Bukowski, Thompson, Kerouac, Satre, Thoreau - nonetheless, they are still tattooed there, somewhere in my deeper psyche.

I shall build a fire.

I shall channel and dissipate the Furious Wrath.

I shall educate myself on the nature of true injustice and donate time to those less fortunate than myself.

I shall unleash my Unholy Show of Performance Art.

I shall charge for it - but there shall be different rates -  some will pay more than others.
Books are being published and writers being read.

Chef phoned me about doing some Christmas work, some unpredictable high-class seasonal banquet cooking and such like (Anthony Bourdain - http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2000/aug/13/foodanddrink1) - or there is the three weeks night shift at the royal mail centre (Bukowski - http://quarterlyconversation.com/post-office-by-charles-bukowski)


What should I do?

But more important,
Above all,
And at any cost,
I shall write,
And keep on writing,
Until everything is lost.

◄ Ezekiel 5:13 ►

New International Version:

Then my anger will cease and my wrath against them will subside, and I will be avenged. And when I have spent my wrath on them, they will know that I the LORD have spoken in my zeal.

New Living Translation:

Then at last my anger will be spent, and I will be satisfied. And when my fury against them has subsided, all Israel will know that I, the LORD, have spoken to them in my jealous anger.

English Standard Version:

Thus shall my anger spend itself, and I will vent my fury upon them and satisfy myself. And they shall know that I am the LORD—that I have spoken in my jealousy—when I spend my fury upon them.

New American Standard Bible:

Thus My anger will be spent and I will satisfy My wrath on them, and I will be appeased; then they will know that I, the LORD, have spoken in My zeal when I have spent My wrath upon them.

King James Bible:

Thus shall mine anger be accomplished, and I will cause my fury to rest upon them, and I will be comforted: and they shall know that I the LORD have spoken it in my zeal, when I have accomplished my fury in them.

Holman Christian Standard Bible:

When My anger is spent and I have vented My wrath on them, I will be appeased. Then after I have spent My wrath on them, they will know that I, Yahweh, have spoken in My jealousy.

International Standard Version:

Only then will I stop being angry—my burning in anger. Then they'll know that I've spoken out in my arduous anger. Only then will my burning anger against them be exhausted. 

NET Bible:

Then my anger will be fully vented; I will exhaust my rage on them, and I will be appeased. Then they will know that I, the LORD, have spoken in my jealousy when I have fully vented my rage against them.

But above all,
Translation, Exegesis, Hermeneutics... above all and at any cost, I shall write and keep on writing, the existential solipsist, until everything is lost. - CG, 2013, "The Mushroom Papers"

Some Basic Notes on Thoreau

I am a Parcel of Vain Strivings Tied

I am a parcel of vain strivings tied

By a chance bond together,

Dangling this way and that, their links

Were made so loose and wide,

Methinks,

For milder weather.

A bunch of violets without their roots,

And sorrel intermixed,

Encircled by a wisp of straw

Once coiled about their shoots,

The law

By which I'm fixed.

A nosegay which Time clutched from out

Those fair Elysian fields,

With weeds and broken stems, in haste,

Doth make the rabble rout

That waste

The day he yields.

And here I bloom for a short hour unseen,

Drinking my juices up,

With no root in the land

To keep my branches green,

But stand

In a bare cup.

Some tender buds were left upon my stem

In mimicry of life,

But ah! the children will not know,

Till time has withered them,

The woe

With which they're rife.

But now I see I was not plucked for naught,

And after in life's vase

Of glass set while I might survive,

But by a kind hand brought

Alive

To a strange place.

That stock thus thinned will soon redeem its hours,

And by another year,

Such as God knows, with freer air,

More fruits and fairer flowers

Will bear,

While I droop here.

- Henry David Thoreau.

Mohandas Gandhi on Thoreau:

Credited Thoreau's essay with being “the chief cause of the abolition of slavery in America” and wrote, “Thoreau was a great writer, philosopher, poet, and withal a most practical man, that is, he taught nothing he was not prepared to practice in himself. He was one of the greatest and most moral men America has produced. At the time of the abolition of slavery movement, he wrote his famous essay "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience". He went to gaol for the sake of his principles and suffering humanity. His essay has, therefore, been sanctified by suffering. Moreover, it is written for all time. Its incisive logic is unanswerable.

—For Passive Resisters (1907)

Dr Martin Luther King Jr. on Thoreau:

“During my student days I read Henry David Thoreau's essay On Civil Disobedience for the first time. Here, in this courageous New Englander's refusal to pay his taxes and his choice of jail rather than support a war that would spread slavery's territory into Mexico, I made my first contact with the theory of nonviolent resistance. Fascinated by the idea of refusing to cooperate with an evil system, I was so deeply moved that I reread the work several times.

I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. No other person has been more eloquent and passionate in getting this idea across than Henry David Thoreau. As a result of his writings and personal witness, we are the heirs of a legacy of creative protest. The teachings of Thoreau came alive in our civil rights movement; indeed, they are more alive than ever before. Whether expressed in a sit-in at lunch counters, a freedom ride into Mississippi, a peaceful protest in Albany, Georgia, a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, these are outgrowths of Thoreau's insistence that evil must be resisted and that no moral man can patiently adjust to injustice. -The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Thoreau on society and State:

“What old people say you cannot do you try and find that you can.” – Economy.

“The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, &c. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense: but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well.

Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens.” – Civil Disobedience.

“How does it become a man to behave toward this American government to-day? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it. I cannot for an instant recognize that political organisation as my government which is the slave’s government also.” – Civil Disobedience.

“Thus the State never intentionally confronts a man’s sense, intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not armed with superior wit or honesty, but with superior physical strength. I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest. What force has a multitude? They only can force me who obey a higher law than I. They force me to become like themselves. I do not hear of men being forced to live this way or that by masses of me. What sort of life were that to live?" – Civil Disobedience.

The Transcendentalists:

“The Transcendentalists were eclectic rather than systematic, any brief description of their views tends to be reductive… …As James Freeman Clarke observed about himself and his contemporaries, the Transcendentalists were ‘a club of likeminded, I suppose because no two of us thought alike.’

The unity within this diversity was a feeling that American literature, philosopy, and religion, as well as government, society, and individuals, were not fulfilling the potential that they believed was possible. Although Thoreau refused to be a member of any collective movement, he did occasionally refer to himself as a Transcendendalist (partially because this self-description could be counted on to confuse and dismay people)…

…Indeed their primary activities were forms of self-expression rather than the kinds of social, economic, or political actions that the bustling 19^th century would have been likely to comprehend.” – Introduction to Walden and Civil Disobedience.

Thoreau on the human condition:

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind.” – Economy.

Thompson's debt letter

Thompson had crafted a lunatic form letter designed to get creditors off his back;  it worked about half the time.

(from one of Thompson’s letters to Sally, The Proud Highway) 

                            April 2, 1958
562 West 113^th
New York City.

Dear Sally,

                Mail this when you get a chance, will  you? If this one doesn’t scare the bastards off, then nothing will. I think I should send a copy of this letter to the AMA (American Medical Association) as a sample of a schizophrenic mind at work: it’s a real whopper. Anyone who would try to collect any money from the author of this letter would have to be an out-and-out fool.

                If they come looking for me with nets, tell them I left several weeks ago to go over to Gainesville, Florida to apply for a job as a religion editor on a paper there. Just as long as they never discover that I’m in New York, I’m all right.

                Thanks, Hunter.

“Debt Letter”

Say man, what is all this? I just got back from New Orleans and the first thing I find is a threat from you people – some wild yap about jail and court and lawyers and such: what do you think I am – some kind of moneybag? Here I am trying to sell my short story trilogy, and you people hound me at every turn – howling and moaning about some idiotic debts! Who are you anyway? I never bought a damn thing from you people. What kind of rotten business are you in – that you have to hound people all over the country? I get a bunch of mail about every two or three months, and every damn time I get some, I find a threat from you!

                What the hell are you trying to do, anyway? Don’t you realize that I can’t work with all this war coming on us? This atomic fallout is God’s WRATH! With the end of the world right on top of us, I can’t afford to work. If I don’t get my work published now, I may never get it published! Haven’t you heard of serving God and Mammon? With all this sex going on a people forgetting about Godf, how can you hound me like this? We’re taking the whiskey into our bodies all the time and drink God’s BLOOD! I can’t hold a job – I get worried all the time and feel half crazy… what are you doing with all this money… we all have a home in Heaven… what’s all this trouble?

                You don’t understand the strain I’m under: I’m not the same man I was a year ago. Worrying about my work and money and jobs all the time is driving me crazy! I have to get my work published! Why don’t you talk to some of these publishers you know and get me an advance so I can write a novel? Then I’ll have some money… then you’ll have it… I won’t get these threats! I got a disease of some kind over in New Orleans and I can’t even go to a doctor! Everybody thinks it’s funny, but I have to get a job. I might be the assistant religion editor of the Gainesville Sun pretty soon… I’m going over there next week to see about a job. I had a car but somebody took it in St Louis. Oh God, what’s happening all the time? Everybody wants to steal and drink and sex and take everybody’s money away from people who don’t even sell anything and there’s atomic fallout everywhere and war coming on. The whole world is going crazy and I don’t even have a job. You’ve got to stop threatening me! I’m not well – I have a blister on my leg and that damn disease all over my stomach. I can’t even think what I want to say anymore… this worry is driving me crazy.

                I tried to work in New Orleans and they made me quit. If I get this thing in Gainesville I’ll be a religion editor and publish my own book in the paper. After that I’ll have a job and get well.

                                                Sincerely, Hunter S. Thompson.

Extracts from an Open Letter to Erbacce

Mr Guthrie would like to point out in his open letter that Erbacce Press are the only publishing company to have supported his work throughout "a) my deep depression b) my alcohol, marijuana, mushroom, tobacco, LSD and sex addiction, and c) my chronic paranoia and uncontrollable fits of hysteria related to multiple personality syndrome."
"If," he says, "in the following pages, a certain derisory or sarcastic tone is adopted in reference to the company, I would like it to be known, that this is only in line with the confusion deliberately set forth in the work, which it is hoped would force the reader into a decision-making process which filters dramatic fiction, from the actual beliefs and day-to-day reality of the author."
In the original manuscript it is said that Mr Guthrie "would like to thank Erbacce Press and those affiliated with such - particularly Alan Corkish, a local street-fighter, both for the selfless, unending work they do to make writers' lives marginally bearable, and also for putting up with egotistical arseholes such as myself."
In "terms of fact and fiction" Mr Guthrie states in his letter, "...the simple and unarguable fact is, that Erbacce deserve a great deal of money to come their way - the fiction is, that it is actually going to come..."

   -   from the handbook preface to "The Lonely Road - Additional Notes on the Open Letter to Erbacce" by Prof E.E. Esposito.

The Outsider.

Well,
Here it is,

My epitaph,

And here I stand,

Alone.

Thrown out,

Or walked out,

Of every job

I ever had,

Every ground

I've ever known.

Thrown out,

Or walked out,

Of every

Institution,

Society

Or company...

Thrown out,

Or walked out,

Of every

Club

I

Ever

Had

The misfortune

To be

A part of.

The Final Post: The Second to Last Epiphany: "these three words"

The Lonely Road?
Concerning Literary Rejection?
Don't make me laugh.
Please remember that this is political allegory.
No, not political, social allegory, and...
...I was coming home from LLandudno on Sunday when it happened. I had a bad argument with Mr B in the car - I'm not sure what about, probably the drugs - but I was driving too fast, I could feel my neck-muscles were locked and apparently a vein was throbbing in my head.
The petrol was into the reserve tank and I abdicated responsibility over the vehicle in view of the high risks of fatality.
I got out of the car at the petrol station to walk home the final couple of miles. Cool off. Wind down. But I didn't.
I decided to cut through Whitfield Common.
There were three teenage girls exiting the gate as I made my way to cut through; two were giving the other one directions.
As I passed the play park I scoped three teenage boys with a girl standing about 15 feet from them. As I walked past and the boys left my field of vision, I heard what sounded like a small stone being thrown toward my feet and I stopped immediately, to weigh up the situation and what the consequences should be.
After about three seconds I turned and asked, "Did one of you just throw something?"
They looked a little startled, each one. Two had hoods up and looked thin and weak, the other was probably clinically obese for his age and propped himself up against the children's climbing wall.
"Did one of you ****ing throw something," I asked.
"Maybe," said the fat one.
"You want to ****ing throw things, don't ****ing throw them at me. I'm a ****ing psychopath, you're messing with the wrong ****ing person," I spat.
The fat one laughed.
"Is it funny? Is something ****ing funny?
Is it funny?" I demanded.
"Everything's funny," he said, sniggering, half-way between shock and mockery.
"Is a broken ****ing nose funny?
Is that funny you ****ing ****?
Is a broken ****ing nose funny?" I could feel myself winding, like an old, but powerful precision-tooled clock spring.
"I've had a broken nose, it's not even sore," Fatscum replied.
I looked at them and weighed up the odds of physical success, which were good, and then subsequent court actions, which were bad. I turned away.
"****ing little ****s," I spat again.
When I was well around the corner, out of sight and around 200-feet away, I heard them shout something, my heart thumped and I stopped dead in my tracks. I looked around for a big stick and quickly started to imagine how much pace I could get up after the corner or whether I could get home for Big Bat and back again before they left.
I thought of the prosecution case again.
I walked home, palpitating all the way.

Poetrty Scotland http://www.poetryscotland.co.uk/ agreed to publish "Existential Sollipsism from the Scheme" http://hithimagainjackhescrazy2.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/existential-solipsism-from-scheme.html
Sam Smith http://thesamsmith.webs.com/ had taken a piece called "The Pitchur Above" http://virgilshandbag.blogspot.co.uk/  for The Journal.
And Erbacce http://www.erbacce.com/ had chosen me as the featured writer in issue 36 - dedicating half the magazine and an interview to me.
I could no longer call this "The Lonely Road" - even although it had paid me no money.

The two things that stuck in my head were the Fat Kid, and the fact that I'd never intentionally misled anyone about "Diary of an Obnoxious Sociophobe" http://obnoxioussociophobe.blogspot.co.uk/. And, that if it was infantile, then it was intended to be. It was written by a fifteen-year-old girl. In the preview, Emily comes of age in the fourth installment - the timeline skips from 1986 - to 2013. But in the full text, it becomes apparent that Emily has only imagined the future and that she reverts to a true dateline of 1986 to resume and conclude the story.

That Fat Kid is still bothering me.
To forgive, or seek retribution?
I could have humiliated him. Bitch-slapped him, taken his phone, bent him over, and no-one would have found out.
But then I wished to allow him no head-space and therefore must admit that to forgive is to forget.
A Man of Principles? No.
Pure selfishness motivates my acquittal of the crimes committed against me and mine.
I shall not be finding the gravitationally-challenged youth and I shall not be executing swift and brutal punishment.
Maybe I should - maybe it would stop Keiran's grandma from taking an unnecessary fall brought on by these over-confident youths. Maybe they would get brutal as time went on.
Either way, I have chosen, like childish things, to lay it aside. When I was a boy, I played with childish things. Now that I am a man, I lay childish things aside.
I forgive, because I am busy - Creating,
experiencing, sharing?

"Come into my arms Fat Kid, and I shall set thee free,
The Lonely Road is built for two, and one of them is me." - Craig Guthrie.

"Create, experience, share" - I never for one moment imagined that these words would be integral to my ethos, that they might become my budget advertisement or that I was even worthy to have them carved into my headstone.

Yes, carve them into my headstone, these three words, but make sure that you grant me, underneath, in a larger lettering 

 "Damyata, Datta, Dayadhvam"

and be sure to never visit there, due to my profound hypocrisy.

-   END   -

The Mental Health Act

Some of the major UK newspapers recently became interested in the current literary work of Mr Guthrie and attempted to contact him for comment. When he was found to be missing for three days, and therefore unavailable for comment, they started contacting Government Departments implicated in his disappearance. Shortly after, these letters went out:



Letter from the DPS to The Guardian, The Mail, The Independent and The Financial Times etc. (dated 21/05/13) :

"Let it be declared here, that Mr Guthrie is currently being detained under The Mental Health Act 1982, Section III, Subsection 12.03, "that parties may be detained, whose communication with members of the public at large may be deemed to pose a reasonable risk to the fabric of modern society."
The Department of Public Security proposed the sectioning of Mr Guthrie through evidence obtained from websites operating under the modus operandi of "Literary Genius" as the words contained therein were deemed to be a threat to public media departments operating for the general good of the "populous proletariat."
Mr Guthrie's various forms of poetry and prose were seen to undermine the current economic state and contribute enough to the cause of economic revolution for action to be taken and would like to take this opportunity to state that the DPS along with the DPH have considerably reduced the threat of a catastrophic economic meltdown in the civilised West by their actions."


Letter from Mr Guthrie to The Guardian etc. (dated 01/06/13) :

"The DPS recently stated that I was being detained under some fictitious Mental Health Act and declared that my work posed a threat to the western economy in general, due to its revolutionary nature and qualities.
Let it be stated here, that I was not and have never been, detained under any Mental Health Act, that I am alive, well and free to make comment on their spurious claims and clear up the whole sordid matter.
On the 20th of last month, I was approached by two burly men, anonymously and soberly dressed, but with tattoos showing above the collar on their neck.
The first man reached into his inside left pocket and produced a large "delete button" mounted on shiny, glossed mdf. Before he could press it, I flew out at him, spun him quickly and uppercut him in the kidneys. I punched rapidly about forty or fifty times in a matter of seconds before he fell in agony and I turned to the second man who quickly sped off.
I believed at the time that these men were from a particular Scottish Yakuza crime dynasty I had dealings with in 1999. I was wrong.
The men in question were from the publisher "R*** H****" and were on direct orders from their CEO to remove a threat, namely me, from any literary platform  in the effort to maintain the current status quo in the publishing world and continue the current fashion of literary predictability. 
They were unsuccessful.
I wouldn't go.
I won't go.
I won't go away.
They know it now.
The best thing I ever did was to start that first letter... to that first publisher, "Dear Motherfuckers," and let the wind absorb me. This is not sentimental, this is not armchair philosophy, this is intended only to be the beginning of the end for an army of substandard scribes.
I would like to thank The Guardian etc for publishing this letter."


The letter from Mr Guthrie was never published by The Guardian, The Financial Times, or any other such publication.

Mon Trou

(rejected by The Paris Bohemian - Paris)

Je vais ramper dans un trou,

Et ne jamais sortir,

Je serai heureux,

Dans mon trou,

Si je me retrouve seul,

Je vais travailler là,

Sans cesse,

Et être heureux,

Dans mon trou.

Angora, plagiarism and another big joke

Well, that is it. Finally, it has all become one big joke.

After Erbacce ("established to give a voice to new and radical poets") informed me that it could not click on an unsolicited site to view my chapbook proposal, I drew up another one, within their submission guidelines.
On their site they say "try something different" and so I redrafted the opening five pages of "Diary of an Obnoxious Sociophobe" http://obnoxioussociophobe.blogspot.co.uk/ and combined it with extracts of my poetry http://hithimagainjackhescrazy2.blogspot.co.uk/ They require five pages and nothing else, which I duly sent them.
Since then, I have been informed that they are not satisfied that the work is my own, as I put the name Emily Ellis Parker on it, and Emily Parker is a name currently being bandied around some current affairs story.
I promptly pointed out that I was not aware of the name, having picked it out of thin air for having a slightly "posh" quality, and changed the name on the site to my own - in big black letters - I then changed the name Emily to Rebecca and even offered to delete the site.
 I also tagged these words on to the top:

 {NB - all the work on this site was written by and is the property of Craig Guthrie. I originally chose the name of Emily Ellis Parker, but was advised that, due to current affairs, I should change it and put my own name on the site. To me, this has taken some of the magic from it, as I originally presented it as the work of the protagonist and was happy to work under this illusion. I have nonetheless complied in the hope that no more questions should be raised as to the author of this work.}

Erbacce still refused to consider the proposal: 

"You are not accused of plagiarism; you send us work and it is work published under another name on a website which you say is yours. Fine... but I’m afraid we are not prepared to accept it as such; our decision."

I have continued to stare, for hours now, at the first words which welcome me to their site - 
Weeds grow where they want to; not where they're told to grow... 
- while wearing an Angora sweater and pencil skirt, scratching my head, and sobbing and laughing intermittently.

Artifice

The sordid in your soul so rare,

That only you can see,

The sordid in my soul so rare,

But naebody writes like me.

But naebody can write like me,

Naw,

Naebody can write like me,

Come ane,

Come aw,

Come an see,

Cos naebody can write like me.

Ye high-class plume,

You must assume,

Eh'm whaur Eh waant tae be,

But Eh've only just stepped in the room,

An there's naebody here but me.

Come wi yer femily,

Stop an stare,

View the freak that spells out free,

Catch what it's like,

Tae hae nae fears,

When naebody writes like me.

The sordid in your soul so rare...

Nae manners an nae artifice -

But naebody writes like me,

Naw,

Naebody writes like me.

It Startit

This was how it startit,

This moment burst wie bliss,

And this was how it endit,

Framin’  shit and piss.

Framin’ ah the faecal matter makin’ up the man,

Framin’ ah the shit an’ piss an’ life flushed doon the pan.

Submission to Erbacce

Dear Erbacce,

          I would like to respectfully submit to you my chapbook proposal.
          Firstly, I would like to say that I am fully aware that you are in no way associated with the "vanity press" and would not be submitting to you otherwise, as my disdain for "them" manifests itself in sudden and unpredictable violent behaviour which is deemed unacceptable by polite society.
           Secondly, that if I happen to be flouting the "submission guidelines", that it is due to my "learning difficulties" and the several "psychiatric conditions" which I suffer from. Regarding these, I strongly believe that if you refuse to consider my work on "submission guidelines" alone, that you are, in fact, discriminating against my specific medical conditions, and I should promptly seek legal advice on this matter.
          My submission is this:
                      A chapbook of at least double the length of what you usually publish - or at least, a chapbook as long as you are willing to publish. You have to understand that I am a desperate Artist with three children and no money. Therefore, the chapbook should be titled, "A Desperate Artist with Three Children and No Money." Though, I am flexible on this.
          As I do not expect you to sift through my work, brilliant though it is, I provide this link to one of my short pieces, confident that you will be able to see enough quality in it to commence at least, some form of correspondence: http://hithimagainjackhescrazy2.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/tartan-scarf.html .
          Yesterday, I received £400 in cash sterling from my dying mother, accompanied by the words, "this is between you and me, don't spend it on drugs."
          By my reckoning, with this money, I would be able to hire a reasonable hall for around £120. I could easily create a compelling theatrical reading of my work over 90 minutes with tea and coffee included, and if I give free entry to 200 people, of which, at least 100 are willing to buy my chapbook at £5 a pop - then we shall more than break even.
          I have dreamt that my accountant has informed me, in spreadsheet form, that which I cannot understand:
      Hall - £120
      Donation to Erbacce - £200
      Outgoings - £320
      Takings - £500
      Net Profit - £180

          If I can make this net profit from this "chapbook evening", then I suggest that there should be 3 obvious benefits:
           1 - I will donate every penny of the profit to a registered charity of my choice.
           2 - It shall have the effect on me, that my work is, indeed, worthwhile, and therefore, I should not feel so suicidal all the time.
           3 - Erbacce Press can re-iterate what I believe to be its mission: 
      - that it perceives beauty and fluidity where others may perceive ugliness and the incongruity of "Literary Spacicity"
      - that it promotes individuality rather than stale imitation
      - that it gives subversive literary Art which has no way of finding an audience, the chance to find an audience.
          Lastly, on a site of mine, primarily concerned with the frustration of the unpublished writer, I mention "Erbacce Press" and some submissions I may have made:  http://thelifeofwrite.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/frustration.html  
                     - if you would like Erbacce's name removed from the site, I shall gladly comply with your wishes with good grace but little admiration. If, however, you should view these mentions as some sort of badge of honour, then I shall gladly continue to write about our one-way "relationship", its up-side and its pitfalls.
                     Yours sincerely,
                                                  Craig Guthrie.