Imaginary Advice Podcast Interview

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You may recall at the end of last year I was featured on an episode of BBC Radio 4's Short Cuts, talking to my good pal, experimental writer and presenter Ross Sutherland. We chatted about the idea of the poem-as-spell, and about how one might employ some spellcraft methodologies when attempting to write a poem to achieve some specific change in the world. 

Well, here on Ross' own brilliant podcast, Imaginary Advice, is a longer cut of that chat we done had. Featuring a bit of the Angelical language received by Dr John Dee, some discussion of some basic chaos magic approaches to invocation, and a great poem by Mr Sutherland at the end on preparing for fatherhood. Good times.

Alexander Cummins

“Necromancer (necromantes) he that practises that wicked Art, a Master of the Black Art, one that seeks to the dead; or consults with Satan in the shape of a dead man. The Hebrews describe him thus; he made himself hungry, and then lodged among the Graves, that the dead might come to him in a dream, and make known to him that which he asked, &c. Others there were that clad themselves with cloathes for that purpose, and spoke certain words, burned Incense, and slept by themselves, that such a dead person might come and talk with them in a dream.”
- Thomas Blount, Glossographia (London, 1661)