Next Big Thing by Stephen Collis

When I did my next thing, here, I tagged Steve Collis, here (that's his Tinfish Retro chap, for free lidat).  I previously blogged on his work, here. This is his self-interview.
 

What is the working title of the book?

To the Barricades, forthcoming from Talon Books in April.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

The book is the third in a series, following Anarchive (2005) and The Commons (2008), to investigate the history of insurgency and revolution—especially in its “grassroots” formations. After looking at the anarchist revolution in Catalonia in 1936 and the resistance to enclosure in England, from the Diggers to John Clare, I wanted to look at the many instances of barricade building in Parisian history (although this became entangled with scenes of contemporary protest and occupation). An inspiration here was David Harvey’s book, Paris, Capital of Modernity.

What genre does your book fall under?

Poetry.

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

Ah…maybe the non-actors from Peter Watkins’s fictional documentary film, La Commune: Paris 1871.

What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?

A long time ago in a galaxy very nearby … we came close to revolutionary success, we can get there still, and the voices of insurgents past and present are merging into one incendiary chorus.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

The book is also interested in the idea of the revolutionary potentiality of what I call the “biotariat”—the uprising of the exploited planet itself.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

When poets get agents we will know that something is deeply wrong.

Make up a question you think is pressing in way of poetry today.

A good deal of politically engaged poetry continues to be written, but how do we get past the self-defeating idea of efficacy (if political art is defined in terms of its efficacy, poetry pales) to an enabling idea like solidarity (political art so defined works to strengthen networks of solidarity by deploying its affects of engagement, urgency, indignation, etc.)?

Tags: Jonathon Skinner, Shannon Maguire, Thom Donovan, Christine Leclerc.