Sinclair Beiles: Poet of Many Parts and Places

Dyehard Press has re-issued Who Was Sinclair Beiles? in a revised and expanded edition. I posted an item about the first edition when it was published five years ago. It’s hard to believe so much time has passed. As I wrote then, Beiles was best known for his association with the Beats. He collaborated on Minutes to Go with William Burroughs, Brion Gysin, and Gregory Corso, and helped to shepherd Burroughs’ manuscript of Naked Lunch into print at the Paris-based Olympia Press, where he worked as an editor. “Best known” is a questionable term, though. If he was known at all, it was only among a certain segment of avant-garde expatriate writers and artists living in Tangier, Paris, London, Rotterdam, Athens, and other far-flung places, where he spent many years scraping by in various capacities.

Born in Kampala, Uganda, and raised in Johannesburg, Beiles at times committed himself to hospitals to deal with his fragile mental health. He eventually returned to South Africa, where he died in 2000 at age 70. His first published book was a novel, The White-Hearted Nigger. His porno novel, Houses of Joy, written under the name Wu Wu Ming, was published in 1959 by Olympia Press for its under-the-counter trade. But Beiles had many different sides to him both as a writer and a personality. Who Was Sinclair Beiles? recalled them faithfully the first time around, more so now with the inclusion of excellent new texts and rare photos.

To answer the question posed by the title, Beiles at his best was an incandescent poet. How else to describe the author of these lines:

there is a way of committing suicide
called poetry
there is a way of taking a knife
and carving from the infinite nothingness of the sky
a solitary cell
in which one spends a lifetime pacing about
occasionally shouting messages
through the barred cell window
at different passers by.
there is a way of trying to create a universe
with all its constellations
from the view of people scurrying by
in the rain with their umbrellas up,
a way of ruling a nation of shadows.
there is a way of imagining
one possesses all the secrets of the soul
and this gift will provide one with freedom,
a way of imagining all the sights
not yet photographed by the travel agencies
there is a way of believing
one has special dreams …

For a quick introduction to the man, have a look at this interview.

For an introduction to the man’s poetry, have a look at this: