The Slow Road to Gore - Anatomy of a Transgressive Poetry Travelogue

Publication history of The Slow Road to Gore

The second print edition of The Slow Road to Gore was published in New Zealand by Third Eye Novelty Editions in 2010. This edition, apart from being a re-design of the original design in 2003 by Andrew Aubry (which was excellent, too) included word and punctuation changes here and there, which I felt improved the work. The first edition from 2003 had a limited print run and would be as rare as hens’ teeth now.

About the poems and performance

The poems in The Slow Road to Gore were written between about 1990 and 2000. I performed them live on many occasions around New Zealand, as a member of the group Poetrycorp, and as a solo performer, for example at the regular Lewd and Ludicrous late-night revues hosted by Bats Theatre in Wellington in the 1990s.

Cover of the 2nd edition of  The Slow
Road to Gore, published in 2010 by
Third Eye Novelty Editions.

Review of The Slow Road to Gore

In printed form, Gore attracted a few admirers, including a thoughtful reviewer at Salient magazine. Read Sam Gaskin’s review.

Influences on the poetry

Vaudevillian temptations aside, I’m drawn to poetry that has fire and ice in its veins – the tempestuous duende of Lorca, the languid stanzas of Machado, or Trakl’s black glacier – as opposed to the neutered wordplays often produced by the more academic type of poet.

I’ve always loved live performance. I trained as an actor when I was an adolescent, at Central Theatre in Remuera, Auckland. This playhouse, with a reputation for being somewhat daring in its choice of productions, was presided over by Mary Amoore, an intelligent, savvy, and widely respected director. My acting coach was a fellow by the name of Marcus Craig, a colourful individual who earned a living as a drag act (“Diamond Lil”) at a nightclub in town, the Ace of Clubs. While training at Central Theatre, I narrowly missed out on being chosen as the lead in a TV children’s series – it went to another blonde youth who, according to the scouts, was “cuter” than me.

Many of the catalysts were present, then, for a “career” in poetry of the noir or Menippean variety (I’ve always loved words, anyway, from a very young age): stagecraft, adult entertainment, and strong emotions. The Slow Road to Gore is based on these – and add in melodrama; dark fairy tales like the brothers Grimm, Poe, and film treatments along these lines such as Pan's Labyrinth; gossip; bad taste; Evil Dead 2; showing off; punk attitude (the Iggy Pop variety); and nonsense verse (I’ve long been a devotee of Edward Lear), then there you have it.

The “travelogue” tag refers to the poems being ordered geographically from the north of New Zealand (Te Kao), down to the bottom of the South Island. The poems frequently reference New Zealand place names. I was pondering whether I should add a glossary of some sort to this volume … then I remembered that Doctor Google can find any place for you if you want to check up on these things. A few odds and ends that might be of interest:

A video interpretation of the poem “The Voice of Foxton” from The Slow Road to Gore (“an acid poetry postcard from small-town New Zealand”, according to the press kit) screened at film festivals around New Zealand, and also at the Antimatter Film Festival in Victoria, BC, Canada in 2002. The 2002 programme is in their website Archive. View The Voice of Foxton on YouTube. It’s 6:40 long.

And The Slow Road to Gore is now available on Amazon as a Kindle e-book.