Colin Shaddick. North Devon's "splendidly eccentric poet", is being promoted by 'The Eccentric Club'. London: http://www.eccentricclub.co.uk/recommended-read.php
Stuckist poetry is not about being 'stuck', it's all about 'honesty'and 'real values'; not 'hype and pretentiousness'.
"Stuckists and their art have been called many things in the press and by observers. A quick cull reveals that we are neo-conservative, revolutionary, reactionary, progressive, traditional, anti-establishment, old-fashioned, new, obvious, controversial, cliched, original, a backlash, radical, pop, expressionist, outsider, conceptual, anti-conceptual, craftsmen, daubers, trained, crude, precise, unfinished, thought-provoking, guache, witty, naive, deep, a joke, serious, contrived, authentic, insensitive, heartfelt, peurile, high-flown, clumsy, genuine, grotesque, important, bad and great.
These things may well be in Stuckism, but none of them is Stuckism. The contradictions that result from attempting to impose conventional definitions are inevitable, because the nature of Stuckism is to contain these opposites and integrate them. There's a very useful word which can be accurately applied to the nature of Stuckism, but it hasn't quite sunk in yet (although it is being 'tracked' by the OED so hopefully people will believe it sooner or later). It is 'Stuckist'." *
* Taken from: 'A Stuckist On Stuckism' by Charles Thomson.
Music begins to atrophy when it departs too far from the dance ... poetry begins to atrophy when it gets too far from music - Ezra Pound.
My very good friend and mentor, Ken Sprague: print-maker, posterman, painter, cartoonist, muralist, banner maker, psychodrama teacher and art teacher, well known throughout the political cartoon world as The Peoples Artist, once said to me:
‘Not that the Artist is a special kind of [person], but that every [person] who is not a mere idler or parasite, is necessarily some special kind of artist.’
Ken was a great inspiration to me and it’s because of his encouragement and support, that I began to write and draw.
A quote by ‘Filthy Pedro’, AFUK, sums up my kind of work very well:
‘... a re-discovery of folk ethics and a reaction against the rigid genre that folk became in the 60s. It’s about using whatever you want to tell everyday stories, valuing humour over sorrow, storytelling over technique, and personality over polish.’
I very often mix poetry and song during my act. This strand of my work usually comments on the potentially embarrassing areas of life the majority of people really want to keep to themselves. But of course, these subjects can be very funny too!
BBC Radio 4 contacted me and asked if I’d be interviewed for their programme,
Ramblings, with Clare Balding. This is what the press had to say about me:
‘... an exquisite portrait of an eccentric slice of British life.’ Radio Times
‘ ... a very tall master of the haiku.’ The Daily Telegraph
‘... a bullet-headed, six-foot five-inch haiku poet.’ The Observer Magazine
‘... an ogre of a man whose thuggish appearance hides the fact that he is a haiku poet of uncommon sensitivity.’ The Guardian
‘... six foot five and built like a rugby player ... uses economical words.’
The Sunday Telegraph
‘... a six-foot five-inch, 18-and-a-half stone, shaven-headed man who keeps being mistaken for a bouncer ... is a haiku poet ... eccentric.’ The Mail On Sunday
‘... finds inspiration in an abandoned truck, its camouflage enhanced by black seaweed... he had the requisite knack of saying less and meaning more.’ The Guardian Friday/G2
‘... a shaven-headed tower of a man (again, this being a radio programme, we have to take the physical dimensions on trust) who turns out to be a gentle poet.’
The Times Online
'... poetry and music is the way for this gentle giant.' North Devon Journal
'Colin is a world class poet and performer.' Ron Whitehead. Kentucky poet
Here’s how it all started: I first became involved with the jazz/poetry scene in London in the mid to late 60’s. It was a great scene then and luckily enough, poetry has made a huge resurgence in the last few years. It’s great to get two bites of a cherry in one lifetime!
I began writing haiku in the 70’s after reading Jack Kerouac’s, The Dharma Bums. It looked so damned easy! I’m still trying to write a good one!
I am also an illustrator/cartoonist.