| Poet or publisher? Janet van Eeden meets Gary Cummiskey of Dye Hard Press |
Janet van Eeden
 The 12th Poetry Africa International Poetry Festival takes place in Durban from the 29 September to 4 October 2008. One of the featured poets is Gary Cummiskey. I asked Gary a few questions about his writing, as well as his publishing through his press, Dye Hard Press.
You have been writing for most of your life, haven't you Gary? Is your desire to write a need to change history or make a mark on the world in some way? The first thing I ever wrote was a short story about Mary, Queen of Scots, and after I had written it I felt I had achieved some major accomplishment. So I felt inspired to continue writing, to continue creating. There is a definite sense of magic involved in the creative process, of opening up possibilities. And yes, also probably a wish to leave a mark on the world. I have always been struck by some lines by the South African poet Wopko Jensma, from his poem "spanner in the what?works", which read: "i hope to leave some evidence/ that i inhabited this world/ that i sensed my situation/ that i created something/ out of my situation."
You have also become a publisher and have been remarkably resilient in this fickle world of South African literature. What made you start publishing with Dye Hard Press?  I started up Dye Hard Press in 1994. It was an accident, really! Like a lot of poets, I was frustrated back then by the lack of publishing outlets, of literary journals. There were, at the time, only New Coin, New Contrast, Slug News and Staffrider, which was on its last legs. I wanted to start up a literary journal, but was initially put off by the financial outlay needed. Gus Ferguson's maverick Slug News was a good example. It wasn't printed, but photocopied, and he laid it out himself in his lunch hours. So I realised I could produce a literary journal myself, cheaply! At the same time Roy Blumenthal was starting up his poetry pamphlet series Barefoot Press, and Alan Finlay was starting up his photostated journal, Blek-Sem, so there was a bit of a poetry publishing revolution in the air. I tried to start up a literary journal, and looking back on it now, it was doomed from the start. I hadn't a clue what I was doing, I didn't know the first thing about publishing. But one of the reasons why it didn't get off the ground was that nobody knew me. The venture had no credibility. So I figured a solution might be to publish a small collection of my work, print about 100 copies, and distribute it for free, then maybe people would see that I was serious about poetry. So I put together about 20 of my poems, called the collection The Secret Hour, and was ready to print. I was going to state that it was privately printed, but then Roy Blumenthal suggested that I create an imprint name, since this would add to the seriousness of my intentions. So as a joke, as a reflection of my refusal to accept that I couldn't get my literary journal off the ground, I created the imprint Dye Hard Press. I met up with Alan Finlay and gave him a copy and he thought that the idea had potential. So then I put together a collection of Alan's poems called Burning Aloes, and things continued from there. I guess that having one's own publishing vehicle is a good thing. You don't need to approach other publishers, hoping and praying that they will accept your work, and of course, with a genre like poetry, it is even worse, because it is becoming so marginalised. Sun Belly Press published a small pamphlet of my poems back in 1996 called City, and that same year Gus Ferguson published my collection When Apollinaire Died through his excellent Firfield Press. Apart from that, all my other collections have been published through Dye Hard Press.
Do you see yourself as a poet or a publisher? I see myself a poet-writer first and a publisher second. I often see myself being referred to as a publisher, journalist and poet, or just a publisher. Last year, at the Cape Town Book Fair, two people expressed surprise that I was a writer. I admit it was a bit concerning that my work as a publisher was apparently eclipsing my work as a poet. I was quite uneasy about it. You know, I might stop publishing at any moment, but I would not stop writing.
What sorts of work do you publish? Dye Hard Press has published mainly poetry to date, and recently a play, Kobus Moolman's, called Full Circle. Through my literary journal Green Dragon I also publish short fiction and creative non-fiction. I definitely want to start publishing novels, though. It is only then that a press can really grow.
You must dread this question: What is the future for poetry in South Africa? Is it relevant at all to the majority of people or is it only ever foregrounded at events like Poetry Africa? The future of poetry in South Africa is a challenge, to put it mildly. Throughout the world poetry is becoming a marginalised genre, but even more so in South Africa. Yet when I started up Dye Hard Press, in the 1990s, just after the first democratic election, there was an intense creative energy around and people were interested in the poetry we put out, they were curious about what was being produced. But that has changed in the past six years or so. There are a lot of possible reasons, too detailed to go into now. There is a fair amount of interest, particularly among the youth, in spoken-word, hip hop-type poetry. In one way this is a good thing - it's great to see a positive response to creativity, and I certainly support the concept of spoken-word poetry. But at the same time, a lot of it poetry is becoming standardised, unoriginal, predictable. It is becoming a product, almost. It has to fit the mould to woo the audience. That is a real problem, because then poetry loses its independence. There is also the problem that poetry in South Africa is becoming commodified and poets being turned into marketing brands. But events such as Poetry Africa really help. They make people aware of what is going on, of what is being produced, what poetic energy is being generated. People also need to realise that poetry is not just the historical-era poetry they were forced to read at school: all those poems written in a language and diction that they could not relate to, about things that they felt they could not relate to. Some poetry might well be about Greek goddesses and wandering lonely as a cloud, but it is also about supermarkets, shopping malls, taxi ranks, soccer stadiums, empty beer cans and ugly stains on a wall. Schools should teach more contemporary poetry, especially contemporary local poetry. Then people will not grow up thinking poetry is something alien that they cannot relate to. Book readers should make a point of reading contemporary South African - buy a collection, or subscribe to a literary journal.
What are your personal ambitions as a poet/writer/publisher? Where would you like to see yourself in ten years' time? I want to start exploring more genres in my writing. A few years back I started writing short fiction. It is a very challenging genre, very different from poetry, with different demands. There is a novel floating around in my head, but it will probably take a while before I start actually writing it. I also want to start publishing fiction through Dye Hard Press. TodayToday
a young man
hanged himself
in his bedroom Today
a woman was
found dead
in a drain Today
a child was
blown to shreds
by a car bomb Today
you left and
will never
return Some bastard Some bastard took my house keys.
I'd foolishly left them
In the front door,
And the next morning
They were gone.
The bastard took them along
With the key-ring
You'd brought back from Malawi,
The one with your name engraved on.
It's as if he took the last part
I had of you. The bastard took them.
More of Gary Cummiskey's poems are available on this website: www.southernrainpoetry.com.
A shortened version of this interview appeared in The Witness, September 2008.
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