Review – “I Love the Internet” by Kevin Barrington
Someone once said that having the confidence to publish a book is like going after Moby Dick in a rowboat and taking the tartar sauce with you.
It was with this, no doubt shut away at the back of her mind that C. Flower of Political World entered the world of online publishing with the launch of ‘I Love the Internet’ a contemporary and abrasive poetry collection written by Dubliner, Kevin Barrington.
Prompted by the discussion and submission of poems to the political discussion forum, Politicalworld.org, and pushed along by the decision of Declan Ganley to threaten the author with legal action concerning disagreements on twitter, it was suggested that Kevin might respond to this threat in a creative riposte ( and help to cover possible future legal fees) by putting together a collection of his best work.
At this point, Kevin grabbed the ball and ran with it, and pulling together a team of artists and photographers, with C. Flower as editor and publisher and Ephilant as e-booker, turned that notion into a reality.
But make no mistake, C. Flower, who first suggested the project, would not have done so had she not believed that Kevin’s mastery of words and grasp on the workings of the world around him, were worthy of the effort required to bring the project to fruition.
It was worth the effort all right; Kevin Barrington’s words do not jump off the page, they hurtle towards you as if fired from the barrel of a Barrett Light 50. But a scattergun it isn’t! Kev’s relentless tirades will hunt you down, find you and riddle you with politics, philosophy, the force of literature and a very generous helping of humour.
Right through, ‘I Love the Internet’, the reader is reminded of modernity and it feels contemporary and yet it nods openly back at the art of yesterday and without fear of taking on either the ancient or the new. Similarly, Kevin Barrington knits together the parochial and the global and kicks the living daylights out of both and still for all that, there is a tender appreciation of family, tight but not always smooth, which permeates the extremities, should you care to look for it.
Barrington’s poems are not designed to wash gently over the reader; they angrily tumble down the page but always in a controlled enthusiasm. Yes, even the nice ones. Who would have thought that the humble moggy in ‘Clam’ could fire such brash emotion? That’s not to say that Kevin can’t turn on the detail when required as can be seen in the gnarled politics of ‘Cambodia’s Rock Star King’, a piece riddled with experience which oozes with the author’s undoubted knowledge of the subject.
This collection is not for comfort reading and nowhere is that more obvious than in the painfully personal ‘Interference’ where we are led to believe we are voyeurs but where in truth, we are simply being shown what could be around the corner for ourselves or our loved ones.
So what’s my favourite poem in ‘I love the Internet’? Well I’m drawn to the curtness and comical abandon of ‘Social Media’, ‘Crack’ and ‘Laughter’ but for me, these just set the reader up for the disturbing and viciously circling masterpiece which is, ‘Daddy’s Cooking Crystal Meth in the Barna Shed’. We all have a Barna Shed.
Above all, the fight in Kevin’s written word comes across as genuine, borne out of his love for language, his personal battle with illness and his utter inability to shut his mouth for much over eleven seconds. Barrington’s book is about more than just words, set in an attractive suburb of fine art and photography, it’s as varied and as vivid on the eye as it is on the ear.
‘I Love the Internet’ will not be the only book which Political World Publishing will release, already several other projects covering literature, history and politics have been commissioned. In a time when franchises, corporate creations and the ghost-written ramblings of incoherent, soon to be fading celebrities dominate the world of publishing, maybe, just maybe, the time is right for a small house like pw to just jump in there and demand its tuppence-worth before the conglomerates choke all resistance.
You gotta love the internet.
I love the Internet by Kevin Barrington is published by Political World Publishers and the whole bucket of lunacy is available from our e-bookstore, priced at €5.00.
It's an online collective Mr Traynor.
ReplyDeleteThe e-book was not bankrolled per se.
It was the result of a dozen people from around the world giving their time and effort for free.
The review was written by Fiveintheface..
You will have to ask him/her who they are.
Happy now Des?
Cos I would hate to think you were sitting there full of bitterness and bile