80 'l he List 23 February — 8 March
CATALIST
Hit me
_ with a jesus sandal
This is a story of moral men.
You’ve heard it before, you’ll hear itagain, God-fearing men preaching wrong and right, The morals of keeping the soul of society white. Quick to crush those who dare to blaspheme,
But these moral-minded men are not what they seem.
For some get caught with choirboys. A briefcase full of sex toys,
The manky mags, and the vulgarvids, That feature women. . . feature kids.
Some get off just watching strippers. Others find they’re into slippers, And the cane-kinky combination
Di discipline and domination.
Some, for whom straight sex is a failure Find frolicking fun in rubber regalia.
And it’s probably more than just a gag, You know, the one about the judge in drag Adjusting his stockings and suspenders While passing sentence on sex offenders.
So let me give you a solemn warning.
Watch them at church on a Sunday morning, Watch them on TV, Well-washed and scrubbed, Denying involvement in rub-a-dub-dub.
Want to hear tomorrow’s scandal? Hit me with a jesus sandal.
Whack me with a cricket bat.
Pin me to the wrestling mat.
Coat me in custard and eat me!
Start me up with a starting handle. Hit me with a jesus sandal.
I’ll play patient, you play doctor, You hoo boys, it’s Harvey Proctor. Play me at cricket and beat me!
Fill my tankwith gasoline.
Smother me in Vaseline.
Wrap me in Sellotape and rip me!
I’m 45 and single - Please, please me. I’m a tube of toothpaste, squeeze me. I’m a chocolate walnut . . . whip me!
BOOKS
Ed to ed
Chapman, the not so little, little literary magazine, is 20 years old. Larry O'Brien met its ed, Joy Hendry, ’ed on.
There’s no easier way to lose friends and inluriate people than by editing a little literary magazine. No one knows this better than Joy Hendry, who has nursed Chapman- self-styled ‘Scotland's Duality Literary Magazine’ - trom its emergence twenty years ago as a sickly eight-page pamphlet to its present bulbous 104 pages of poems, stories, criticism and reviews.
Hendry puts Chapman's current circulation at ‘around 2000’, a remarkable figure considering that it's not long since she toured the pubs on Saturday nights, selling the magazine like the Sally Army’s Warcry.
Hendry is an indelatigable editor, thick-skinned and broad-shouldered, forthright in her views and clear where she’s going. Apeing the phenomonally successful Granta, she describes Chapman as an 'anthology’ and wonders why newspapers ignore it. Lately, exploiting the name, she has- also like Granta - begun publishing books, the tourth of which, Dilys Rose’s Madame Doubtfire's Dilemma, appeared last month.
The shuttle diplomacy required to keep contributors happy while massaging the Scottish Arts Council (whose annual grant to the magazine is currently nudging £10,000) is one she has had to perfect over the years. She had her tlrst run-in with the SAC when both editor and magazine were still in their 20s. She acknowledges that in those days she and Chapman were tinged green but she was determined to keep the magazine alive. When Chapman's grant was axed she protested while others clammed up. The SAC gave her a stay of execution,
and the rest is bound in libraries for all to see.
Chapman was founded by her first husband, the poet and critic Walter Perry, and Joy gradually got more and more involved with its day to day running. From the start it has published the best of Scottish poetry — Macharmid, MacCalg, Robert Garloch, Derrick Thomson, George Mackay Brown, and Sorley MacLean in Gaelic, without an English translation. ‘That was a coup,’ says Joy, unabashei at alienating the majority of her readers. it would be easy enough to fill the pages by playing sale, but the fun i: in taking risks and discovering new talent. Writers to look out for include, says Joy, the north-east poet, Sheena Blackhall, Margaret Elphinstone, Alexander Hutchinson and Meg Bateman. Sitting submissions for nugget is hard graft; the obviously had and cranky are winnowed out betore .loy takes a hand. She is well aware that the tone at the magazine is down to her. When I expressed reservations about Kenneth White's contributions in the latest issue (No 59) she said she too was not a wholehearted convert. To counter her doubts, she had commissioned a critical essay on the Franco-Scottish guru.
There is a problem, too, ol identity. Many who should be better inlormed perceive Chapman as cliquish and chauvlnistically Scottish. Such criticisms threaten to reduce Hendry to apoplexy. ‘Look through the back issues,’ she challenges, drawing attention to poets like the late Alexander Scott, with whom she leuded in the past and from whom she went out of her way to solicit copy. Then there are the regularspecial issues, on the predicament ol the Scottish writer, drama in Scotland, and women’s writing, as well as those on Chinese, East European and Dutch writing, as well as issues devoted to writers as diverse as Kathleen Raine and Rilke.
Proof, if any were needed, that Chapman still strives to be ‘even more varied, interesting and vital than betore.‘
An annual subscription to Chapman (00 Moray Street, Blacktord, Perthshire PH410F) costs £7.50. Single issues are available from enlightened booksellers, newsagents and the Scottish Poetry Library for £1.80. Madame Doubtfire's Dilemma by Dilys Rose is published by Chapman at £4.50.
I?” ' V" ~
Engineers have their arms lengthened in an attempt to speed up th
.ko _ I
construction of the Forth Hail Bridge. The illus is from The Forth Bridge: A Picture History by Sheila Macksy (Moubray House Publishing £8.95),
I990