Bill Lewis (born August 1, 1953) is an artist, poet, publisher and mythographer, a founder-member of The Medway Poets, and a founder-member of the Stuckists art group.

Life and art

Bill Lewis was born in Maidstone, England. He attended a secondary modern school and left in 1968 with no qualifications. In 1975 with his friend, Rob Earl, he started a series of poetry readings called Outcrowd in a pub in Maidstone. In 1976 he had a breakdown and spent time in a psychiatric ward. In 1977 he attended Medway College of Art and Design on a year Foundation Art course, where he met Billy Childish.

In 1979 joined up with Childish, Charles Thomson, Sexton Ming, Rob Earl and Miriam Carney to found The Medway Poets poetry group. This was very successful in the region and beyond, performing at the Cambridge International Poetry Festival in 1981 and the subject of a TV South documentary the following year. In Lewis's dynamic performances, he "jumped on a chair, threw his arms wide (and to everyone's amusement hit his head on the ceiling) and pretended he was Jesus."^[1]

1978-82 he was the CSSD Porter at West Kent General Hospital, which provided subject matter for many of his poems at the time (since 1982 he has concentrated on creative work full-time, supported by his wife, occasionally taking temporary jobs such as cleaning floors in Tesco and tomato-picking). He knew Tracey Emin at this time and helped edit her short stories for her first book, Six Turkish Tales Hangman books 1987).^[2]

In 1999 he was one of the founding members of the Stuckist art group along with Childish, Thomson and Ming. Lewis has been featured prominently in all the key Stuckist shows, including The Stuckists Punk Victorian held in 2004 at the Walker Art Gallery for the Liverpool Biennial. He has stressed sincerity in art: "People are never sure if we are being ironic or not. We are not. We are coming from the heart."[1]

Lewis has published six books of poetry and three of short stories; he has read in the US and Nicaragua. His writing is included in The Green Man (Viking Press), World Fantasy Award winner, as well as The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror (1997)and (1998)[2]. His work was also published in The Grandchildren of Albion, edited by Michael Horowitz. Hisi poems were translated into Spanish by the Puerto Rican poet Naomi Ayala, though not published. Several of his short stories were translated and published in Germany by Connie Lösch. He has also been a small press publisher under differing imprints, including the Lazerwolf Press.

In 2005 he founded The Medway Delta Press. The first project was a limited edition set of 3 CDs entitled Voices From The Medway Delta, featuring work by Billy Childish, Sexton Ming, Chris Broderick, Bill Lewis, and other key names in the Medway scene. The Medway Delta Press has also published a DVD documentary by Carol Lynn on Stuckism.

Trivia

Bill Lewis googlism