Ronnie McGrath

I photographed Ronnie in The Curio Lounge in Stroud. Ronnie had suggested that, as a surrealist poet, it would be appropriate to be photographed in a cafe.

Ronnie say's on his website at https://ronsurreal.com;

"Among many other things, I write socially conscious poetry and prose that engages with ideas concerning art and identity. Influences are numerous but some of the writers and artists that inspire my work are James Baldwin, Clarence Major, Amiri Baraka, Will Alexander, Andre Breton, and Ani Difranco."

Ronnie has kindly shared one of his favourite poems taken from his collection Data Trace 2010.

Blood

I slice this vein and pour meaning

Into things innumerable

Signifiers as naked as a woman’s shoe

Scrape yesterday's lipstick

From the bonnets of their fingernail

Black sky bluer than when the sun was born

Gives birth to infinite planets

Voracious appetites devour birdseeds

And as the treacle of blood trickles across the page

Dying becomes the norm of things unspoken

I slice this vein and pour meaning

into things immeasurable

footprints more abstract than flower stems

set their homes on dusty bookshelves

orange day sun guard vulnerable wombs from themselves

as the youngest of Black revolutionaries

pour the narrative of their struggles

into the corporate hands of a microphone

I slice this vein and pour meaning into things unclear

Mouth organs unfettered by the guise of illusory habits

Grin metal teeth fantastically

Morning sky sucks rice grain through a straw

As the rational ways of celebrity poets

Try to break the spirited charge of wild horses.

ronnie mcgrath