An introduction to the post-epicurean psychedelic school of poetry
Plato: Socrates, my old pal, great to see you in this Athenian dive bar. I have been having a few doubts & frustrations with the direction of contemporary poetry. My doubts are nothing new, I am sure they are shared by others, however, to explain briefly, I feel very little of note has happened in poetry since the publication of The Waste Land in 1922. The rampant commercialisation of advanced capitalism alongside other dark forces, especially the rise of social media, where any idiot with a few publications to their name is automatically a poet, has led to average writers becoming, in their own heads only ‘famous writers.’ This includes those who hold office as Poet Laureate, edit the Poetry Review, and those who win large cash prizes. I want to distance myself from the commercialisation of the art form. I want to make my disapproval loud & clear. I thought the best way to do this would be to establish my principles in a new school of poetry.
Post-epicurean psychedelia exists at an intellectual remove from a culture in decline. It finds its remedy for the ills of our society in the concentration on the image of modernism, along with good things that have come out of writing, in terms of the opening up of the arts to diverse backgrounds & developments in sound, tone and form that I, as the leader of this new school, enjoy. I think we need to go back to modernism with its imagery-heavy and luscious landscapes and couple this with solid foundations of Epicurean philosophy and playfulness. These are the founding precepts of my school. How would you frame your objections to the ‘leading’ poets of our generation? I mean, would you rather read one of their poems or endure a long-winded public debate in the Agora about whether Maria Sledmere knows how to pronounce “philosophia”?
Socrates: So does one have to be a hedonist to enrol in this school? It sounds a tad programmatic. Are you a hedonist? Are you a decadent? Some of those 1890s chaps took things to extremes. I've come to believe that the mature poet writes the poems they have no choice but to write, irrespective of who might happen to be Poet Laureate or the flavour of the month, and those poems will, in one way or another, reflect their life, their character, personality, experience, views on cookery, blah blah etc.
It's an endless, unpredictable, fascinating, bewildering, unsettling, and often really annoying process. If one is lucky, after everything, or somewhere along the line, one will establish what people call "a voice". So, given all of that, at least half of which I might agree with at any one time, I would assume that if one is a true hedonist, a fully signed-up Epicurean, their poems will naturally reflect that philosophy, and they would not need to enroll in a school, or adopt a program. If the poet only adopts the guise of the hedonist you'd end up with dishonest poems. But perhaps dishonest poems can be okay. Poems are only machines made out of words, after all. Discuss.
Plato :I’m not looking for any poets to sign up, enroll, or join my school. I’m not offering my services as an editor for free, I'd rather hear a poem about Luke Kennard deciding whether to go for the last piece of lamb at the symposium than another ‘self-reflection’ on the poet’s breakfast habits. Either you are part of the movement or not. I do not care. On a personal level, it is unlikely your poetry, my dear friend, as much as I admire you, your poetry would never be accepted as post-epicurean – you style is outdated - though I do admire your critical writing. Post-epicurean psychedelia is not pedagogical; it is philosophical. The principles of creative writing schools do not exist – they are essentially a sham, a pyramid schemes from a failed Blairite experiment to open up education to the masses, which allows those willing to demean themselves for money, i.e. academics comfortable lives and plenty of opportunity to waffle and hold forth over meaningless forms.
I like your idea of poems as machines made of words, but your conception of hedonism is misconceived. Epicurus was not “taking things to extremes” – not by modern standards. The hedonism Epicurus believed in was the pursuit of ‘peace of mind’ or ‘a life free from stress’ through letting pleasure dictate his day. “Day is desire and night is sleep” – as Wallace Stevens later wrote.
Poetry, then, must go on pleasure and treat pain in a more nuanced way. There is also too much focus on the identity of the author; the work is more important. Sylvia Plath, though a manic depressive, might still be considered Epicurean in that she bit her future husband on the face – an example of someone not afraid of being alive. Her poetry vibrates with the thrilling chill of life. However, Plath’s disciples, many of whom send me poems to Anthropocene, are not welcome in my school, nor are they welcome in my journal. Anthropocene, for the many citizens of Athens who are unaware, is an online poetry journal I started while studying at the University of East Anglia, after becoming disillusioned with my teachers I stopped going to the workshops and seminars. I started the journal in July 2019 and my fellow Epicureans Aaron Kent and Laia Sales Merino soon joined me in the process - they are still involved today. At UEA I did not appreciate being told how to write. Fast forward six years of editing a successful poetry journal - I can no longer read the ‘sob story.’ I am tired of hearing the same boring ‘reflection on selfhood’ . I’d rather hear from poets who enjoy life, or at least, make an attempt to enjoy life. Post-epicurean psychedelia is completely free and exists a million miles from the identity of the author. It has nothing to do with academia or the vain and vacuous notions of a million ‘social media poetry influencers.’ However, you can join no matter your background – we are open-minded – it is simply about outlook, and fatally, skill.
Some poets I’d recommend reading who share our principles: Jayant Kashap - one of the great post epicureans. Maria Sledmere - one of the leaders of this generation's avant garde - Plus many other fantastic poets: Shannon Clinton-Copeland, Isabelle Baafi, Hera Lindsay Bird, Matthew Haigh, Toby Martinez de las Rivas, Jen Calleja, Antosh Wojcik, Joe Wright, Anthony Capildeo, Golnoosh Nour, Luke Kennard , Lewis Buxton and Sarah Fletcher. If you write in an adventurous, imagery-heavy style, with little to zero focus on your identity, there is a place for you in Post-epicurean psychedelia, no matter the colour of your skin or sexual persuasion, or if, in my case, you are a bit of a dickhead. On a slide note, my dear Socrates, are you sure those sandals are “appropriate for public discourse” ?
Socrates: You missed, somewhat, the joke. John Ashbery tells of the lady who one day asked how she could enroll in the New York School [Editor’s note – does anyone apart from me and Socrates know this joke?]. Also, I don’t think I have "misconceived" hedonism – I merely pointed out that some of the so-called decadents of the 1890s took pleasure to often extreme lengths.
But, to move on. I am not at all averse to having fun in poetry. If you had read much of my work, you would probably already know that, although what is fun for one person might be sheer tedium for another. It's that old New York School influence, and the time I spent with some of those poets in person – Kenneth Koch, Paul Violi, and Charles North, for example – always involved a lot of laughter, and sometimes more laughter than poetry. But I digress a little, and want to ask a question.
Why do you use the word "psychedelia" in your description of what you're up to? Are you on drugs?
Plato: I’ve read a lot of your poetry and I don’t think you count among the great Athenians, plus your toga is falling down to reveal a rather paunchy midriff. What have you been eating? Why are there yellow stains on your socks ? Despite your poor sartorial taste, the reason I like hanging out with is that you, like me, have strong opinions about poetry. The simplest answer to your question over drugs is no, due to family experience I am aware of the harsh realities of drug addiction. I prefer to live cleanly and feel good through a healthy diet [doubly important for me as I am diabetic]. I do like drinking a lot of coffee when I write and I indulge in the odd vape – a habit I picked up from a girl I used to see around Athens, from time to time.
Why psychedelia? It is an attempt to get away from the mundane, since we have identified it is the mundane which is haunting contemporary letters. I also agree with Bob Dylan, who almost everyone likes, so I am assuming you do too, when he said that once in a while the mind needs to get a little twisted, be that on wine, weed, or whatever – those are not really drugs, they are just ways of escaping from our mundane realities. However, despite an interest in fracturing the real, the psychedelic in post-epicurean refers to the heady and intoxicating imagery. I am aware that you hate my poetry as much as I hate yours, but I will use this as an excuse to quote from my second favourite critic, as you are the first, Socrates, below is Andreea Iulia Scridon writing about my poetry in The London Magazine:
With an acute awareness of a quotidian magic “lovers tonguing in a foreign language,” Charlie Baylis walks through an alternate reality of “orange trees with these orange seeds,” “a palace of tender hearts,” takes us “tearing down sunset boulevard/where the window blinds are lit by gorgeous light/the boats in the harbour twinkle with soft French verbs.”
It is within the gorgeous light of soft French verbs and the sunset swinging through the windows of Sunset Boulevard that the school of post-epicurean poetry was born. It is there that it will stay, far removed from the accessible twaddle that ‘the common man’ can relate to. Contemporary poetry’s ‘leading lights’ make the fatal mistake of giving the reader what they want – not giving the reader what they need. Poetry readers deserve to be given a challenge, rather than Christmas card messages. For me, as I stated at the outset of this discussion, we must go back to modernism and reset the dial. We must go back to H.D. and Pound and Marianne Moore and Eliot and forget the confessionals and the luxurious boredom of the last thirty years. The only way forward is the way back – would you agree? Or has there been a better poem written since T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land that I missed?
Socrates: The reason I asked about drugs – a little bit tongue-in-cheek, though you missed that – and the use of the word "psychedelic" is because that word has a meaning as well as fairly specific connotations for someone of my age and with a certain history of social and leisure activities. I wasn’t expecting a run-down of your own particular intakes. It turns out you’re using the word in the vague way people often do to indicate colorful and/or vivid imagery.
Anyway, to move on, and at the risk of sounding like the boring old fart I might be, I would suggest that speaking about giving the people what they need, rather than what they want, has overtones I find a little unsettling. I think history is littered with people who have said something very similar, albeit it had nothing at all to do with poetry.
For myself, I would rather read and try to write the poetry I want to read and write and leave it at that. Frankly, to have a reasonably significant number of people read and enjoy one's work, and to get the thumbs up from poets of stature and that one looks up to, is about as much, or perhaps more, than one can hope for. Simon Armitage is just part of life's wallpaper, and there's a lot of wallpaper. If people enjoy his work, let them. It's not worth losing sleep over.
I would say, though, that when I was about 25 and starting out in “Poetry World,” I wanted a revolution too, and wanted what me and my mates were doing to take the place of whoever the big names were at the time. It's a healthy attitude for young poets to have. You will probably tell me I'm being patronizing, but never mind.
As for The Waste Land, I think it's a tremendous poem, as well as being of obvious historical importance in terms of its effect on the course of literary history. It's quite a feat to be both those things. But there are other great poems that have been written since, though to compare them as "better" or "worse" is a bit apples and oranges. They're great poems of a different order and have not had the same seismic effect that Eliot's poem did – which is not very surprising. I'm thinking of particular poems by, for example, Bishop, Stevens, Williams, Ashbery, O'Hara to name a few (predictable) suspects. And yes, they're all American, but I have my leanings, .
I'm afraid I have little to say about the future of poetry. It will go on, in all its varied forms. I predict that you will have a book out from an independent publisher I have never heard of and it will garner praise from some quarters.
Plato: Aha! You’re talking about my second collection - i am working in it now - it is going to be called ‘white flowers’. The writing is going well - though it is hard. However, post-epicurean school is not about my poetry. The school is an attempt to push the art form forward. I don’t have a problem with anyone who holds a pen and uses the pen to write poems. Unlike you, I acutally love Simon Armitage. I love Carol Ann Duffy. I think Simon Armitage’s status in the “Poetry World” reflects relatively fairly on the quality of his writing; whereas you’ve hardly pulled up any trees in a 356-year writing career. Anyway, moving on from trading barbs...and throwing a brick instead: Why are certain poets dumbing poetry down to the extent it tastes like hamburgers which are just hamburger flavour hamburgers? I encourage young poets (and myself!) to get off the internet. Put down Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, or whatever David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest is called these days and get down to a library and read for an hour. Study the craft. Poetry is worthy of your time. The school will only admit poets who are readers, and good reading is always followed by good poems.
A young person paying to attend a creative writing school needs to be cautious; the academics who are teaching you are part of a system designed to exploit. Post-epicurean poetry empowers its followers to throw their teacher’s work in the bin, tear it apart, and spit on it. We must get back to the idea of the artistic sublime. We must get back to writing for pleasure, a true concept of pleasure which takes the writer down to their darkest ebb of the conscience, where they experience every dark emotion possible before they resurface in joy. We must treat the internet with caution – it does strange things to our minds. Let’s have a revolution where we create a new school of thought, where the only quality that matters to the poem is its artistic value. The rest is noise.
Finally – my dear Socrates, I would like to express how grateful I am for you taking the time to talk to me. Allow me to treat you to the next round. Come along old fellow, we’ve bored the public of Athens for long enough with our ideas.
[Plato pushes through the queue and orders a couple of whiskies – Simon Armitage walks into the bar … Socrates runs a mile]
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Thank you Martin Stannard for participing in this public discourse - or symposium - I am greatful he did not beat me to a pulp when I told him I was the editor, so the final edit would be mine. Deal with it Socrates ;)
My favourite book of his is Postcards to Ma - buy a copy and support the poet! Thanks for reading, Charlie xx
