Alexander K. Stubbs
Featured Artist:
Alexander K. Stubbs:A Keen Writer
by Gene Marie
“Whenever I could, I would escape the confines of a cold, loveless…house, and head off into the countryside, where I found, and still find, inspiration to write, sketch, paint, and develop a flair for photography .”
I was introduced to Alexander K. Stubbs back in 2006, through his works only. The instant I read his words I knew I had to know more. The first poem I read was Wild Beauty:
Wild Beauty
Wild beauty, wild flowers
Foxglove and rue,
Meadowsweet and violets
Sparkling with dew,
Growing on scars of nuclear waste
Across landscapes where once humanity grew.
I was exposed to more of his writings, and slowly I discovered more and more about such a keen writer. A few months later Stubbs introduced himself through an email. He said it was time he showed me more; within a few weeks I had an interview. Although I interviewed him last year, I wanted to save him for a little later due to the changes I was making within Intrinsic Expression. Inspiration and expression are two constant themes within Intrinsic and as all artists here, Stubbs portrays this perfectly. In addition to inspiration it is also about life’s music, it’s rhythm within you and outside of you. I am pleased to expose you to another writer who writes his own rhythm of life. Here are his words:
How would I introduce myself? Stubbs, the conundrum…a likable chap although he wasn’t always.
So, shall I bare my soul? Shall I take you by the hand, and lead you through the wonderland that is yours truly…maybe yes, but where to start? Well I guess the beginning is a good enough place.
The beginning, such a very long time ago—another time and place, and in lots of ways a very different me. I was born 60 years ago at end of WW2 in Liverpool in unfortunate circumstances…out of wedlock was the very quaint expression used back then. Yes, I was a little bastard, who grew up into a very different kind of bastard. But I shall come to that in due course…and now my mind is remembering, the abject misery, the love and the hatred, all the emotions from a to z that a child should never have to deal with and how those emotions were mine to own till I was in my late twenties.
I was a dreamer, imaginary friends being my only companions. Whenever I could, I would escape the confines of a cold, loveless home—wrong, house, never a home…and head off into the countryside, where I found, and still find, inspiration to write, sketch, paint, and in more recent times develop a flair for photography.
Being a child on my own hand in hand with nature gave me some wonderful opportunities for learning. I would borrow library books on fauna and flora to take with me on my adventures and journey’s around the countryside. I got to know the birds and wild flowers—wild flowers get mentioned in my poetry quite a lot. For example The Otters:
The Otters
Morning rose
with an apricot sun
and Broadford bay,
crowned in silver and gold’
opened wide her arms to Helios
and welcomed the new day.
And Helios
bounced shards of light
from the backs of two early morning revelers,
as in their private ring of bright water
they blew kisses at a halcyon morn,
till a passing snipe
with a haunting aside
admonished them,
causing them to dance away.
(Broadford Bay is on the Isle of Skye)
My stepfather died when I was eighteen and for the first time in my life I was free of his sarcastic criticism. I had guessed when still just a kid that I wasn’t the fruit of his loins’ so to speak. I mean I really did know. We lived with my maternal grandparents till I was five when we moved into our own home. For now I’m jumping ahead a good few years when I wrote the following:
I Am A City
I am a city, I am her people,
I am their pain and their tears.
I am the bitter, the damned and the broken,
the twisters, the twisted, the meek and outspoken.
I am the man who cries alone,
I am the man who unbeknown
to the strangers who live in the next door home
is dead a week from loneliness syndrome.
Here comes the child cruelly abused,
I am the guilt, the fear the accused,
the filth on the streets, perversion and crime
the couldn’t care less, sign of the times.
I am a city fighting decay,
I am the promise of a brighter day
I am the dreams of a new generation,
the city’s rebirth, rejuvenation.
I am a city, rising, a phoenix,
from the ashes of yesterday’s politics,
I am a city awakened unbowed,
I am a city, bruised but proud.
My teens were the pits. From 16 to 21 it was sex, drugs and rock and roll, and at 21 I quit Liverpool for London. It was the end of the sixties and the times they were a changing, for sure and I knew my life would never be the same again. When I left home apart from my mother and siblings (three half brothers and two sisters), I left behind a girlfriend who unknown to me at the time was pregnant. My daughter was born in ‘68. I was never allowed to see her and I was estranged from my family for eleven years.
These days I live in Scotland on the north Ayrshire coast. Although originally I come from Liverpool, where my one claim to fame is that the local midwife Mary McCartney delivered me at birth. Yes, indeed Paul’s mother.
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