Blutkitt

Blue Touch Paper event on may 16th

2012-03-06T11:08:00.001-08:00

Blue Touch Paper Preview Event

Wednesday 16 May, 7.30pm, Village Underground, London

The London Sinfonietta and Jerwood Charitable Foundation are delighted to present an event showcasing three works currently in development on the Blue Touch Paper programme.

Steve Potter and Kélina Gotman's music-theatre piece stages the urgency and ambivalence of dreaming other possible worlds. Philip Venables and Steven J Fowler explore boxing, a form of violence sanctioned by society, through the use of music and poetry. Meanwhile, Elspeth Brooke, Seonaid Goody and Anna G Jones use the arts of puppetry, live music and electronics to re-imagine the Greek myth of Persephone and Demeter.

This exclusive preview event is not open to the public, however a limited number of tickets will be available to the London Sinfonietta Pioneers. Join today for your opportunity to attend. See making new music happen below for more details.

Maintenant #87 - Eugene Ostashevsky

2012-03-05T11:17:00.002-08:00

An irrepressible poet and thinker, the work of Eugene Ostashevsky has been a dynamic presence in the New York poetry scene for some years. Born in Leningrad and emigrating while still a child, like so many who have left their homeland, alongside the ebullience and humour of his own poetry, Ostashevsky has been a tireless translator and advocate of Russian poetry, most specifically the OBERIU group, whose radical experimentation was led by the near mythological Daniil Kharms. Teaching at New York University, the energy and vibrancy, and intellectually buoyancy, of Ostashevsky places him as an invaluable link to both the Russian past, and future, in poetics. He reads in London for the first time on March 8th 2012 at Pushkin house, and celebrating that event we are pleased to welcome him as the 87th respondent of the Maintenant series.

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/maintenant-87-eugene-ostashevsky/

Accompanying the interview is an excerpt from the The Pirate Who Does Not Know the Value of Pi, a work-in-progress about the relationship between a pirate and a parrot.

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/the-pirate-who-does-not-know-the-value-of-pi/

As mentioned Eugene is reading for in London this upcoming Thursday, at Pushkin house. He will be speaking specifically about the OBERIU group and it should be a unique event, not to be missed. (Thanks to Alistair Noon)

http://www.pushkinhouse.org/en/events/the-oberiu

Chatting with Sam Riviere

2012-03-05T11:16:00.001-08:00

Listen back to Austerities

Carmel Doohan, writing in Exeunt, gave our packed event Austerities a magnificent five stars:

“Sam Riviere is trying to find a way of being authentic about this inauthenticity. At Toynbee Studios, he recites a poem that reads like a shipping forecast of literary criticism. Comprised of a tutor’s one line comment on each poem – good, okay, we’ve heard this idea before, nice rhythm - it reveals the work lurking behind the myth of inspiration. Poetry is shown as calculated word-smithery; like everything else, poems are made to create a certain response.”

★★★★★ Exeunt Magazine

Listen back to Sam Riviere reading from 81 Austerities and in discussion with SJ Fowler.

Bataille

2012-03-02T13:09:00.001-08:00

Reading at the Tenderpixel gallery

2012-02-21T15:19:00.001-08:00

Thanks to Patrick Coyle. The reading is from Minimum Security Prison Dentistry

Maintenant Camarade II: The Videos

2012-02-14T10:00:00.000-08:00

I’m very pleased to say Saturday’s Camarade: Edition II event was another remarkable evening of poetry and a fine continuation of the series. A three figure audience witnessed some wonderful performances and equally significant poetry, and it was an evening which showed the depth of talent, inventiveness and wit in the contemporary British scene.

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/maintenant-camarade-edition-ii-2/

McCabe & Jenks

Bonney & Sutherland

Terry & Hilson

Maintenant Camarade II: The Book

2012-02-14T09:55:00.001-08:00

Out now from The Red Ceilings Press. It’s only 5 pounds and contains work from 22 poets that won’t be found elsewhere.

Sharon Borthwick's pictures from Maintenant Camarade II

2012-02-14T09:49:00.001-08:00

the Righteous Harmony Society Movement

2012-02-14T08:37:00.000-08:00

After about a year, the Voiceworks song from last year, created in collaboration with the singers Lucy Roberts and Hadleigh Adams and the composer Wenjing Wang has been placed online.

http://www.voiceworks.org.uk/works/works1011/the_righteous_harmony_society_movement.html

The poem is about Chinese revolutionary spiritual movements, specifically the boxer rebellion, and stupid stereotypes of China from the West. Here's the blog with the text of my poem http://blogs.voiceworks.org.uk/1011/groupthree/

Enjoy enjoy www.voiceworks.org

More amazing pictures by Alexander Vernon-Kell from the Tring Taxidermy Museum

2012-02-11T00:13:00.001-08:00

Little girls

2012-02-11T00:12:00.000-08:00

One week to Maintenant Camarade: Edition II

2012-02-04T13:21:00.000-08:00

Marcus Slease and I are reading at this Saturday

2012-02-02T14:19:00.000-08:00

Otoliths #24 - 'if her last wish were' published

2012-01-31T06:05:00.000-08:00

Issue twenty-four, the southern summer issue of Otoliths, is now live.

It's as eclectic & full of energy as ever, has as a special feature Michael Gottlieb's new essay, Letters to a Middle-Aged Poet, & contains new work from Grzegorz Wróblewski, Noha Al-Badry, Hugh Behm-Steinberg, Tom Beckett, j/j hastain, Arhm Choi, John Martone, Philip Byron Oakes, Bobbi Lurie, John M. Bennett, Raymond Farr, Donna Kuhn, Calvin Pennix, Cecelia Chapman, bruno neiva, Travis Cebula, Theodoros Chiotis, Adam Trawick, Sean Ulman, Ana Viviane Minorelli, Lakey Comess, Spencer Selby, James McLaughlin, Katie Berger, Caleb Puckett, Stephen Nelson, Andrew Topel, Jeff Harrison, Claramarie Burns, Zachary Scott Hamilton, Marthe Reed, Kit Kennedy, Jill Jones, Márton Koppány, Andrew Taylor, Stu Hatton, SJ Fowler, David Harrison Horton, Daniel f Bradley, Susan Gangel & Terry Turrentine, Howie Good, John Pursch, Joseph Cooper, D.J. Huppatz, Cherie Hunter Day, Stuart Barnes, Bill Drennan, Charles Freeland, Adam Fagin, Marty Hiatt, Eva Heisler, Helen White, dan raphael, Bob Heman, Tim Wright, Michael Brandonisio, J. D. Nelson, & Mark Cunningham.

http://the-otolith.blogspot.com/2012/01/sj-fowler.html

Jenny Hval in Medellin

2012-01-31T02:07:00.000-08:00

http://www.festivaldepoesiademedellin.org/pub.php/en/Festival/22_Festival/Poetas/hval.html

My interview with Jenny Hval on the Medellin poetry festival website

New tumblr for Visual Poetry

2012-01-31T02:02:00.000-08:00

http://sjfowler.tumblr.com/

North Chicago Review

2012-01-31T02:01:00.000-08:00

Update: the North Chicago Review is nearly here!

16012012

Finally.
After a variety of setbacks that range from shitty printing presses (I said it, we’re on our third one – though this one’s great, really) to broken bones and the occasional flash flood, we are in the final stages of the process. We expect final-edit copies in the very near future, at which point we can do a quick sweep for glaring errors, and then get these suckers printed! Among the nearly overwhelming number of submissions (a fantastic problem to have), we have selected an eclectic group of artists – proud to have them involved.

Artist’s Spotlight: SJ Fowler, who will be introducing a band of relevant British Poets – giving us a glimpse into England’s modern poetry scene. www.sjfowlerpoetry.com

It’s going to be great. Stay tuned. http://northchicagoreview.com/2012/01/16/update-the-north-chicago-review-is-nearly-here/

Maintenant #85 - Gonca Özmen

2012-01-22T14:08:00.001-08:00

Contemporary Turkish poetry looks confidently back upon the iconoclastic individuals who have constituted its genuinely remarkable tradition, and the current cohort of poets emerging from the 21st century possess the unique sensibility in language that marks them from their predecessors and stamps their entire generation with the influence of their work. As the light of poets like Ilhan Berk and Nazim Hikmet begins to fade from view, it is poets like Gonca Özmen who have come into their own. After just two collections and a variety of prizes, Gonca has become one of the most direct, concise and eloquent voices in Turkish poetry and one who has begun to grow a reputation far beyond the borders of her home nation, thanks to last year’s publication of the Sea Within, a collection of translated poems from Shearsman press. In our 85^th edition, we are pleased to welcome, our second Turkish respondent, Gonca Özmen.

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/maintenant-85-gonca-ozmen/

Accompanying the interview are five of Gonca’s poems, translated by George Messo, Ruth Christie, Mel Kenne, Saliha Paker respectively.

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/five-poems-gonca-ozmen/

Peter Jaegar's magical lecture on John Cage & Zen Poetics

2012-01-22T13:50:00.000-08:00

____________

The Buddhist Society The Buddhist Society The Buddhist Society The Buddhist Society The Buddhist Society The Buddhist Society The Buddhist SocietyThe Buddhist Society The Buddhist Society The Buddhist Society

58 Eccleston Square, London SW1V 1PH

(Victoria Station 5 mins. Walk) 020 7834 5858 www.thebuddhistsociety.org

There are also talks and courses on Zen, Tibetan, Pureland Theravada Buddhism as well pra There are also talks and courses on Zen, Tibetan, Pureland Theravada Buddhism as well pra There are also talks and courses on Zen, Tibetan, Pureland Theravada Buddhism as well praThere are also talks and courses on Zen, Tibetan, Pureland Theravada Buddhism as well praThere are also talks and courses on Zen, Tibetan, Pureland Theravada Buddhism as well pra There are also talks and courses on Zen, Tibetan, Pureland Theravada Buddhism as well praThere are also talks and courses on Zen, Tibetan, Pureland Theravada Buddhism as well praThere are also talks and courses on Zen, Tibetan, Pureland Theravada Buddhism as well pra There are also talks and courses on Zen, Tibetan, Pureland Theravada Buddhism as well pra There are also talks and courses on Zen, Tibetan

a spy vanderung inem wilderness - Mercy UK

2012-01-21T06:14:00.000-08:00

SJ Fowler and Ben Morris at Liverpool Music Week

17/01/12 Live
by Nathan Jones

An experimental, highly affecting experimental poetry and music performance for unsuspecting audience at Liverpool Music Week, commissioned by Mercy.

We asked SJ Fowler to produce a new performance, to accompany Jon Davis's new setting of Dustin Wong's seminal Infinite Love album, for guitar orchestra. In this collaborative show with Samizdat, we decided to produce two complementary works which explored 'trance', 'hypnosis' and the loop in relation to performance.

Steven asked his friend Ben Morris to collaborate with him on this project.

With language-based work, there is always a difficult hurdle to climb when we consider what is happening with something which tries to be 'abstract' and let the mind wander, while we use a concrete 'signifying' language. Steven changed the nature of this relationship by using an invented 'cod-yiddish' to perform his work. It's a really powerful peice, set of by Ben's finely balanced drone music.

SJ Fowler and Ben Morris - A Spy Vanderung Inem Vildness from Mercy on Vimeo.

Some information and discussion around this work here.

Art Gallery Bouncer published by Gauss PDF

2012-01-21T06:12:00.000-08:00

GPDF041 // SJ Fowler & Patrick Coyle // Art Gallery Bouncer

SJ Fowler & Patrick Coyle

Art Gallery Bouncer

2011

PDF

Monika Rinck 'to refrain from embracing'

2012-01-14T02:40:00.001-08:00

http://www.burningdeck.com/catalog/rinck.htm

With linguistic sophistication and a great deal of self-irony and humor, Rinck sets in tension the most disparate ideas “along with their margins.” Her tonal register shifts from harsh to vulnerable, from formal to casual and playful, from mockery to dreaminess. Her subject matter combines reflection on language and philosophy with everyday problems, animals, pop culture. And she is equally at home with Kant and Bob Dylan, Hölderlin and bar talk. The book is indeed a “tour de trance.”

Monika Rinck lives in Berlin. After studies in comparative literature and religion, she attracted attention with her Begriffsstudio, a website (www.begriffsstudio.de) and book (2001) of striking concepts and weird neologisms. Her first book of poems,Verzückte Distanzen, appeared in 2004, followed by the present volume, zum fernbleiben der umarmung (2007), HELLE VERWIRRUNG / Rincks Ding- und Tierleben(2009), and a book of essays, Ah, das Love-Ding (2006). Her many awards include the Ernst Meister Prize (2008), Arno Reinfrank Prize (2009) and Georg K.Glaser Prize (2010).

“As adaptable, multifaceted, and aggressively engaged as any voice in contemporary German poetry, Monika Rinck is a poet of intellect, experimentation and humour. Her work over the last decade has been marked by a singular turn of expression, the profound imbedded in a poetic discourse that disarms the reader… It is a careful and precise methodology.... Her work implies poetry has something akin to a responsibility, that it acts as a trace, a marker that can enlighten.” —S. J. Fowler, 3:AM Magazine/Maintenant #4

Maintenant on Poetry International

2012-01-13T02:16:00.000-08:00

I am pleased to say Poetry International, a world class, internationally focused literary magazine and organisation based on the campus of San Diego State University has taken on a program to reprint the Maintenant series, beginning from issue #1, on their site. This will give the series a wider readership in both the American and academic communities and provide a sort of second life to the publications. The first posts can be seen below and can be followed from the PI website here http://poetryinternational.sdsu.edu/ Thanks to Ilya Kaminsky, Jenny Shippey & Victoria Valencia.

http://pionline.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/maintenant-1-aki-salmela/

http://pionline.wordpress.com/2011/12/18/maintenant-2-elena-vladareanu/

http://pionline.wordpress.com/2011/12/21/maintenant-3-nigar-hasan-zadeh/

http://pionline.wordpress.com/2011/12/25/maintenant-4-monika-rinck/
http://pionline.wordpress.com/2011/12/28/maintenant-5-gerdur-kristny/
http://pionline.wordpress.com/2011/12/31/maintenant-6-tom-jenks/

http://pionline.wordpress.com/2012/01/04/maintenant-7-jan-wagner/

http://pionline.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/maintenant-8-eirikur-orn-norddahl/

http://pionline.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/maintenant-9-maria-ridzonova-ferencuhova/

http://pionline.wordpress.com/2012/01/12/maintenant-10-donatas-petrosius/

Maintenant #84 - Maarja Kangro

2012-01-13T02:13:00.000-08:00

Over the last few decades it has become clear that the Baltic is one of the most prolific and energised sources of contemporary European poetry. Nor is this community of poets of a certain style or movement or form. The writers emerging from Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and the surrounding nations are radically individualistic, as innovative as they are classically powerful. Amongst them Maarja Kangro is quite clearly one of the most formidable voices of her generation - effortlessly intelligent, wry, considered, incisive, her relentless output of translations, librettos, prose, poetry and children's stories have assured her place as a leading light in North Eastern Europe, with a reputation striking deep into Germany and Italy and we hope, as her brilliance continues unabated over the coming years, further into the UK and US. For our 84th edition, we welcome Estonia's Maarja Kangro.

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/maintenant-84-maarja-kangro/

To accompany the interview we present five of Maarja's poems, translated by Richard Berengarten, Mike Horwood, Brandon Lussier, Ilmar Lehtpere and Maarja herself.

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/five-poems-maarja-kangro/

Coyle at Tenderpixel

2012-01-13T02:11:00.000-08:00

T E N D E R P I X E L .

10 CECIL COURT LONDON WC2N 4HE

MAIL@TENDERPIXEL.COM

13 JAN - 18 FEB

PATRICK COYLE : TO DRAW A BLANK

PV FRIDAY JANUARY 13 6-8PM

7PM PERFORMANCE WITH PATRICK COYLE, HOLLY PESTER + OTHERS

PROGRAMMED EVENTS

FRIDAY JAN 20 & SATURDAY JAN 21 3-6PM
CONTINUOUS POLYMORPH PROJECT Performance by Patrick Coyle at London Art Fair,

STAND P10, Islington Business Design Centre, London N1

FRIDAY 27 JAN 7PM TO DRAW A PRACTICE
Presentations by antepress (Julia Calver, Patrick Coyle, Cressida Kosienski, Claire Nichols & Tamarin Norwood) & invited guests demonstrating their own individual practices from scratch & from memory.

FRIDAY 10 FEB 7PM TO DRAW AN END
Closing event with performances by Patrick Coyle, SJ Fowler and invited guests.

Tenderpixel is pleased to present Patrick Coyle: To Draw A Blank, an exhibition and series of performances. Coyle re-presents found images, objects and texts that demonstrate an encounter with misunderstanding, whether in terms of ambiguous meaning or a deliberate misappropriation of material. Working across writing, performance, sculpture, drawing, photography, collage and painting, Coyle displays new works which explore varied meanings of blankness.

Originating from a Familiar Phrases picture puzzle illustration (which bears a striking resemblance to the artist), the title of the exhibition suggests multiple readings of the blank; going blank in terms of forgetting, the blank canvas or page and the blank template as arbitrary constraint. Utilising the stage area of the basement space, Coyle will programme a series of performances delivered both by himself and others. Also displayed within the lower gallery will be a series of drawings that document a continuously evolving sculpture, which will in turn function as a performance prop.

Patrick Coyle (b. Hull 1983) is a London-based artist and writer. He completed MFA Art Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London in 2010 and BA Fine Art at Byam Shaw, University of the Arts London in 2005. Recent exhibitions include CONCRETE POETRY, Hayward Concrete Cafe, London; Fig.3: I don't know what to say, David Roberts Art Foundation, London; The Bottom Line, Tenderpixel Gallery, London and Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2010, A Foundation, Liverpool & ICA, London. Coyle has recently delivered performances at Spike Island, Bristol; The Mews Project Space, London; The Poetry Cafe, London; Arnolfini, Bristol; Flat Time House, London and Islington Mill, Salford. Recent publications include Timepieces (with Art on the Underground), Art Licks Magazine, ment journal, and the ICA's Roland. For further information please visit www.patrickcoyle.info

work in 2011, work 2012

2012-01-01T09:39:00.002-08:00

Happy new year! to wrap up 2011...

My third collection Minimum Security Prison Dentistry is finally available to buy online.http://www.anythinganymore

anywhere.co.uk/ It's a fiver.

My second book 'Fights' had had its second print run and is now available to order from Veer book

http://www.bbk.ac.uk/

cprc/publications/

Veer_Publications/Veer040

My first book, which came out in April, Red museum can be bought here -http://www.knivesforksandspoonspress.co.uk/

theknivesforksandspoonspress/D-G.html You just have to scroll down a little bit.

In the next few months my contribution to the Tate’s 'in focus' project will be published online. I have written ten poems in response to Henri Gaudier-Brzeska's plaster relief, 'The Wrestlers' made in 1913.There very well may be a reading at the Tate in conjunction with this commission, hope you can attend.http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?workid=5012&roomid=2645

The London Sinfonietta blue touch paper scheme will culminate in 2012, and my collaboration with the composer Philip Venables will be premiered in London - http://www.londonsinfonietta.org.uk/blue-touch-paper Happy to be the first poet involved in the scheme.

I am participating in the Voiceworks project again http://www.voiceworks.org.uk/, working with composer Theodorus Chatzidis and singer Clare Ghigo from the Guildhall music school. Here is the performance from last year at the Wigmore hall in London, a piece created in conjunction with Wenjing Wang, Lucy Roberts and Hadleigh Adams. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EE6PoH3kY-o If you are in London in May, please attend the event.

Really excited to be involved in the Poetry Parnassus project coming up in the summer of 2012. http://ticketing.southbankcentre.co.uk/about-us/discover-and-do/poetry-parnassus I will be doing some comparing and many of the poets I admire from Maintenant and others beyond Europe will be in attendance I am sure.

Working alongside Chinese artist Yue Yu and composer Marta Lozano Molano I will be writing an interactive poem for an audio application for a tour of the Barbican centre and residential complex. It should be first revealed at Central St.Martin’s in Spring 2012 and then available at the Barbican by the summer.http://www.barbican.org.uk/

One of my highlights of 2011, reading in Manchester for the Other room series. My reading and an interview can be found herehttp://otherroom.org/2011/11/22/steven-fowler-other-room-interview-and-reading-october-2011/

Very happy to have worked with Mercy UK http://www.mercyonline.co.uk/in 2011 alongside the musician Ben Morris. Our first piece together, performed at the Liverpool music week finale can be seen here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKH6JxGxBHY

I have been nominated for a Pushcart prize in 2012, through my Taxidermy poems on Vox Poetica.

http://www.pushcartprize.com/

3am published 40 Maintenant series interviews in 2011. When we get to #100, I will take a break for awhile, but the series won’t end.http://www.maintenant.co.uk/

The thread program on Resonance fm hosted a panel with myself, Kasia Boddy and Lynda Nead discussing boxing and art / poetry -http://thethreadradio.org/?page_id=370

The covers project began in 2011 and will get a lot bigger in 2012, and I’m always looking for new contributions. Please check out the first 30 editions herehttp://coversproject.wordpress.com/

I was very proud to publish over 25 poets as editor at 3am magazine, including Tim Atkins, Philp Terry and Richard Barrett. You can see them herehttp://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/index/poetry/

Peter Hughes wrote a generous summation of some of my work so far on the Poetry Book Society sitehttp://www.poetrybooks.co.uk/poetry_portal/knives_fists_and_spoons

During 2011 I’ve been very lucky to be featured in these publications, amongst others:

Occupy Writers - http://occupywriters.com/works/by-steven-fowler

Aspidistra magazine- http://aspidistramagazine.co.uk/

The Rattle Journal - http://rattlejournal.org.uk/

Sand: Berlin’s English literature journal - http://sandjournal.com/

Elimae - http://www.elimae.com/2011/05/Murder.html

Infinite Editions - http://infiniteeditions.blogspot.com/2011/04/s-j-fowler-jack-dempsey.html

Veer about - http://dl.dropbox.com/u/21679813/Veer-About-Corrected-28.pdf

Otoliths - http://the-otolith.blogspot.com/2011/03/sj-fowler.html

the Herbarium anthology - http://www.physicgarden.org.uk/

I published a chapbook with Oystercatcher press, Fights XIX: Johnny Tapia http://www.oystercatcherpress.com/sjfowler.html

And another Fights series with the remarkable Red Ceilings press, Fights XX- the Songs of Salvador Sánchez http://www.theredceilingspress.co.uk/chaps.html

Knives Forks and Spoons press will also be publishing a collaborative work with the poet Sarah Kelly in the coming months called ‘Ways of describing Cuts’, please keep an eye on the website http://www.knivesforksandspoonspress.co.uk

Gauss will be publishing another collaboration with the artist Patrick Coyle called ‘Art Gallery Bouncer’ and the work will be available online for free athttp://www.gauss-pdf.com/ Here is a video of Patrick and I reading the text at the Soho Curzon http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbXyj86o-lc

My collaboration with the photographer Matteo Patocchi will be printed in a limited edition pamphlet this coming February -http://www.matteopatocchi.com/

My two collaborations with the Austrian visual poet Anatol Knotek, Glitches and the Inner life of Man, have been published by Dept magazine http://departmentpoetrymagazine.blogspot.com/2011/

12/department-5-now-available.html and Anything Anymore Anywhere magazine summer 2011 edition http://www.anythinganymoreanywhere.co.uk/online-store.php

Some reviews from 2011

Tomas Tranströmer - http://www.swedishbookreview.com/show-review.php?i=329

Jeff Hilson - http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/a-reluctant-bulldozer/

Wayne Clements - http://galatearesurrection16.blogspot.com/2011/03/clerical-work-by-wayne-clements.html

Thanks for reading, happy 2012.

http://www.sjfowlerpoetry.com/

http://www.blutkitt.blogspot.com/

http://www.youtube.com/fowlerpoetry

Other room is the 3am website of the year for 2011

2011-12-29T07:48:00.000-08:00

3:AM Website of the Year 2011
The Other Room

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/3am-awards-2011/

Dept #5 - a collaboration with Anatol Knotek

2011-12-26T05:08:00.000-08:00

A4. 44 pages. £2.50.
New work from: Iain Britton, JP Duran, SJ Fowler and Anatol Knotek, RTA Parker, Nat Raha, Andy Spragg, Steven Waling

Available now at the Department site. This work featured is my second collaboration with the amazing Austrian visual poet Anatol Knotek, following 'the inner life of man' which was featured in Anything Anymore Anywhere, this is our work 'Glitches'. http://departmentpoetrymagazine.blogspot.com/2011/12/department-5-now-available.html

Gnomes for Xmas!

2011-12-24T06:10:00.000-08:00

The Red Ceilings press has just published the first part of the truly remarkable collaboration between Chris McCabe and Tom Jenks, entitled Gnomes. This work was commissioned for the Maintenant Camrade project I, and will continue for the second Camarade event, which will be held at the Rich mix centre in London on February 11th 2012. Click the link to buy this limited edition chapbook.

http://www.theredceilingspress.co.uk/ Welcome to double dip.

Maintenant #83 - Daniele Pantano

2011-12-24T05:56:00.000-08:00

One of the leading poets of central Europe, a Swiss poet by all rights, is somehow is also one of its leading poets of exile. Daniele Pantano, vigorous, multifaceted, considered and cerebral in his poetry, is one of the most active and highly regarded translators of modern Swiss poets and writers, and has brought to light some of the finest authors of the 20th century in Walser, Dürrenmatt and Trakl. Moreover, he has a fine reputation as a critic, poet and teacher in both America and England. His is a story of living in more than one country, writing in more than one language, pursuing poetry in more than one facet, and anyone who has read his work will not be surprised by the breadth of his background and erudition of his account. Discussing the modern history of Swiss literature, his own journey from Switzerland to America to England and the work that is marking him out as one of the most remarkable talents of his generation, Maintenant presents its 83rd edition and it’s first Swiss poet, Daniele Pantano.

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/maintenant-83-daniele-pantano

Accompanying the interview are four poems from Daniele’s remarkable, and ever growing, new project, Mass Graves. You can buy parts XIX-XXII here and its thoroughly worth doing so
http://www.knivesforksandspoonspress.co.uk/theknivesforksandspoonspress/P-Z.html

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/fou-poems-daniele-pantano/

Erkembode - David Kelly's amazing new website

2011-12-21T07:23:00.000-08:00

Artist and frequent collaborative partner David Kelly has just begun to upload his reservoir of past and contemporary material onto one web hub, to be found here http://erkembode.wordpress.com/

Here are a selection of works from the site:

This is from his series done in tandem with the launch of Minimum Security Prison Dentistry and exhibited at the Horse Hospital

This is a portrait

This is from our collaborative chapbook St Augustine of Hippo

Occupy

2011-12-21T07:21:00.000-08:00

http://occupywriters.com/works/by-steven-fowler

http://occupywriters.com

My name and a poem about the occupation movement in front of St Pauls has been added to the growing list of signatories at Occupy. The Occupy writers project continues to swell and is well worth a visit. Many great poets are featured, including former Maintenant interviewees Ana Bozicevic and Christodoulos Makris. http://occupywriters.com/works/by-christodoulos-makris

Two new books from Eggbox press

2011-12-21T07:17:00.000-08:00

Two amazing new releases from Egg Box Publishing this Christmas: prize-winning rising poetry star, Agnes Lehoczky's long-anticipated second collection, Rememberer, and critically-acclaimed Vahni Capildeo's sensational third collection, Dark & Unaccustomed Words, both in wonderfully designed limited edition hardbacks -- you will not find a finer book of poetry anywhere.

http://www.eggboxpublishing.com/articles/show/fresh_eggs

http://www.eggboxpublishing.com/books/show/dark__unaccustomed_words

http://www.eggboxpublishing.com/books/show/rememberer

Minimum Security Prison Dentistry - available to buy online

2011-12-12T11:40:00.000-08:00

http://www.anythinganymoreanywhere.co.uk/sjfowler.php

My third collection now available to buy online from the publisher's website.

Maintenant #82 - João Luís Barreto Guimarães

2011-12-12T11:31:00.000-08:00

With a precision and focus that seems to mirror the requirements of his profession, a surgeon, the poetry of João Luís Barreto Guimarães is representative of the finest work in contemporary Portuguese letters. Concise, eloquent and immediate, his work is concerned with phenomenological clarity and an engagement with a language of presence, of excavated intimation, and a wholly personal reality that hinges on a fundamental act of communication with the impersonal. For over two decades he has been a leading light in a poetry tradition often underappreciated outside of its borders, but from which giants of modern poetry like Fernando Pessoa and João Miguel Fernandes Jorge have emerged. In an extremely generous interview, we are pleased to present João Luís Barreto Guimarães as our first Portuguese edition of Maintenant.

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/maintenant-82-joao-luis-barreto-guimaraes/

Accompanying the interview are five translations by Ana Hudson. These poems form part of Ana’s remarkable project http://www.poemsfromtheportuguese.org/ in which she has pioneered the translation and elucidation of a vast number of contemporary poets writing in the Portuguese language.

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/five-poems-joao-luis-guimaraes/

Maintenant #81 - Valerio Magrelli

2011-12-12T11:21:00.000-08:00

For over thirty years Valerio Magrelli has represented Italian poetry to the world. Inarguably the most influential poet of his generation in Italy, the oeuvre he has thus far established has ensured his place as one of the few poets able to look eye to eye with his nation’s iconoclastic predecessors. And yet, this language of grandeur does not seem apropos in describing a work built on agility of thought, deftness of expression, a modest, good-natured gesturing to the immense power of poetry which, in and of itself, locates that very power. Valerio Magrelli is a poet whose work has the authority to wake his readers, to bring their focus back to the poem itself, as a thing, not as a product of a poet first and foremost. Consistently, it is this eloquent and energetic intellect which resonates through his work and reminds us of the heights that the Italian language and the Italian poetry tradition can reach. For the 81st edition of Maintenant, Valerio Magrelli. Thanks to Jan Wagner, Federico Italiano & Jamie McKendrick.

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/maintenant-81-valerio-magrelli/

Accompanying the interview are four poems, taken from the book 'Valerio Magrelli: The Embrace' Faber & Faber 2009, translated by Jamie McKendrick. For this remarkable undertaking, Jamie McKendrick won the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize and the John Florio Prize.

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/four-poems-valerio-magrelli/

Maintenant #80 - Arnoud van Adrichem

2011-12-12T11:19:00.000-08:00

A poet whose inventiveness and incisiveness is architectural in its care - witty, adventurous, circuitous and at ease with its own intelligence, the work of Arnoud van Adrichem, one of the most remarkable poets and critics Holland has produced in the last decade, stands as an example of how international traditions, multiple languages and a shift in political culture, will not waylay a brilliant poet from writing brilliant poetry. If anything it will only add context to the work of a poet like van Adrichem, recognised across the Netherlands and beyond as one of the most considered and necessary agents for poetry currently at work, and with no sign of lagging. Editor of the international journal Parmentier and a specialist and translator of L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry, it is hard to look past Arnoud van Adrichem as a fundamental part of the future of Dutch letters. Another exceptional addition to the Maintenant series, edition #80, we are privileged to have his work translated into English for the very first time thanks to the generosity of the Nederlands Letterenfonds with thanks to Jan Pollet.

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/maintenant-80-arnoud-van-adrichem/

A poem in five sections, Corner, accompanies this interview. This is the first time Arnoud van Adrichem’s poetry has been translated into English and was only made possible by the generous support of the Nederlands Letterenfonds (the Dutch Foundation for Literature) and of Thomas Möhlmann. Translations by Willem Groenewegen, 2011. http://www.willem-groenewegen.nl/

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/five-poems-arnoud-van-adrichem/

Cemal Süreya & Turkish video-poems

2011-12-08T15:53:00.001-08:00

I've just visited Istanbul, for the third time in the last three years. Again, I used the time to read as much Turkish poetry in translation as possible. As ever Nazim Hikmet, Edip Cansever, Ilhan Berk and Cemal Sureya have infused themselves into my reading and work in general. In searching for a reading of Sureya I found a massive spate of videos on youtube featuring Turkish poets being read over image montages and background music. Ive not seen anything like this before, at this frequently anyway, there are hundreds of these videos.

Nominated for the pushcart prize

2011-12-01T11:54:00.000-08:00

Chosen from over 1000 poems, my poem 'oar fish' from my Taxidermy series has been nominated for a pushcart prize by Vox poetica and its editor Annmarie Lockhart. http://www.pushcartprize.com/

"The Pushcart Prize - Best of the Small Presses series, published every year since 1976, is the most honored literary project in America. Hundreds of presses and thousands of writers of short stories, poetry and essays have been represented in the pages of our annual collections.

Writers who were first noticed here include:

Raymond Carver, Tim O’Brien, Jayne Anne Phillips, Charles Baxter, Andre Dubus, Susan Minot, Mona Simpson, John Irving, Rick Moody, and many more. Each year most of the writers and many of the presses are new to the series."

amazing pictures from minimum security prison poetry by Alexander Kell

2011-11-30T14:24:00.000-08:00

http://alexanderkell.tumblr.com/

Covers!! episodes 29-34

2011-11-30T14:21:00.000-08:00

http://coversproject.wordpress.com/

New covers by Becky Cremin, Daniel Barrow, Irum Fazal, Ollie Evans, Nell Stevens and Edmund Hardy

Sharon Borthwick's pictures from the Horse Hospital

2011-11-27T13:06:00.001-08:00

http://peckhaminfurs.blogspot.com/2011/11/horse-hospital-prisoners.html

Minimum Security Prison Poetry - the readings online

2011-11-26T14:32:00.000-08:00

A huge thanks to everyone who read and attended and supported on Wednesday night. It was another unique and memorable reading, the 17 voices of the poets spilling together like the contents of a magic intestine. It was a lovely evening to launch my new book and the venue, the Horse Hospital, was really exceptional. Special thanks to Catherine Carncross, Livia Dragomir, David Kelly and Andy Spragg for helping out. And to Colin Herd for the book.

Tim Atkins - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGSe0lZg2eM

Stephen Emmerson - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23AMje1WdvU

Jeff Hilson - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYAyR9YTZDQ

Holly Hopkins - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3f5yqWW7-jQ

Matthew Gregory - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFHM35022sI

Kirsty Irving - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvDviZ_BCIY

Antony John - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqKAMiQhtg4

Mendoza - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw2_1mZGd0U

Tamarin Norwood - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjMvde0GJBk

Chris Page - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTUIsjmvXng

Jon K Shaw - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60XHVNETejU

Marcus Slease - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAzWi4nhELM

Andy Spragg - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqcWJGEQo6o

Steve Willey - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i94kzHV4v70

New covers! #24 to #28

2011-11-26T14:29:00.000-08:00

http://coversproject.wordpress.com/

pictures by Alexander Vernon-Kell

2011-11-26T14:16:00.000-08:00

Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work. Flaubert

http://alexanderkell.tumblr.com/

a spy vanderung inem wilderness - closing out liverpool music week for mercy

2011-11-21T13:17:00.000-08:00

Ben Morris were treated so well at the closing night of Liverpool Music Week last week, performing this collaborative piece based in concepts of warped language sound poetry, jewish history, avant garde music and so forth. The audience was very kind and it was a memorable experience.

Christodoulos Makris' new book

2011-11-21T13:16:00.000-08:00

Spitting Out the Mother Tongue available to buy from the Wurm Press site (http://wurmimapfel.net/wurmpress?start=1). An amazing poet

Voiceworks sessions 3 reading & discussion

2011-11-21T13:15:00.000-08:00

This was rushed, but it is what it is.

Sand Journal #4 published

2011-11-21T13:09:00.000-08:00

http://sandjournal.com/ one of the best journals in Europe, SAND - Berlin's english language publication. I have two poems and a calligram in issue 4

Charles Olson - in cold hell, in thicket

2011-11-21T13:06:00.000-08:00

Olson is very important to me at the moment, and the work Im writing now. This is amazing

Maintenant #79 - Emanuella Amichai

2011-11-16T11:27:00.000-08:00

Perhaps Emanuella Amichai represents the ethos of the Maintenant series more succinctly than any of the other 78 poets that have gone before her. The question of what is poetic is akin to the question of what is European. Both are fluid, unanswerable, and all the more essential for that unresolvability. Working in the medium of moving image, of dance, theatre and film, she has taken groundbreaking strides towards what can only be called a video poetry, a form of visual poetry. Working in tandem with some of Europe’s finest writers, including Jan Wagner, she has shown her absolute control of both mediums, both poetry and film, utilising the grammar of motion to remarkable poetic effect. If this places her outside the poetic mainstream, what might be deemed The definition of a poet, then the fact she is the daughter of one of the 20th century’s greatest poets firmly roots her back into the tradition of European letters. For the 79th edition of Maintenant, Israel’s Emanuella Amichai.

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/maintenant-79-emanuella-amichai/

A video poem of Emanuella's will soon follow on the 3am website, but for now can be viewed here, on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0e1GAqvk24

Holly Pester, one of the most exciting poets working in the UK right now, and Maintenant interviewee, has published her first collection with the remarkable If P then Q press, edited by James Davies. The book, called Hoofs, is a radical and original collection, really worth buying. It can be purchased here for 8 quid. - http://ifpthenq.co.uk/books/pester-holly-hoofs/

Also Maintenant interviewee Marcus Slease has just published a chapbook called Smashing Time, as part of the MIPOesias Chapbook Series. It is available for free digital download or print purchase of 9 quid. http://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/299099 The artwork is by the Polish punk poet artist Grzegorz Wroblewski.

I am happy to say the Maintenant Camarade 2 event is now fixed for February Saturday 11th 2012 at the Rich mix centre, near Brick Lane, in London. This will be the first event of ours not themed with international poets but focusing primarily on the paired collaborations that were such a success at the last event. Pairs confirmed so far include:

Sean Bonney & Keston Sutherland

Maria Fusco & Andrea Brady

Jeff Hilson & Philip Terry

Colin Herd & Patrick Coyle

James Davies & Stephen Emmerson

Todd Swift & Matthew Gregory

Sam Riviere & Sophie Collins

Katerina Kashchavtseva & Lucy Harvest Clarke

Tom Jenks & Chris McCabe

Marcus Slease & Peter Jaeger

http://www.maintenant.co.uk/

http://www.sjfowlerpoetry.com/

http://blutkitt.blogspot.com/

http://www.youtube.com/fowlerpoetry

Ludo Mich & Akke Phallus - this Saturday at Cafe Oto

2011-11-16T11:26:00.000-08:00

LUDO MICH WITH HARAPPIAN NIGHT RECORDINGS AND PASCAL NICHOLS + AKKE PHALLUS DUO
@ CAFE OTO

Sunday 20th November 2011

Doors: 8pm

Tickets:
£6 adv / £7 door

Singing Knives Records, Haimenfeldman and Café Oto present:

LUDO MICH

Ludo Mich is a Belgian Fluxus artist, performer and filmmaker, active since the 1960s. Ultra Eczema helmer Dennis Tyfus was instrumental in bringing Ludo to the attention of a younger generation after he saw Ludo’s pansexual aktionist emetic films from the 60s and 70s – nudist adaptations of science fiction and Greek myths. In 2005 Ultra Eczema released an lp cut from the soundtracks of these experimental films which featured Dadaist poetry, savage cries and screams, homemade instruments and junk sound. Through this fresh wave of exposure, recent years have seen Ludo Mich collaborating with, amongst others, Dylan Nyoukis, Kommissar Hjuler und Mama Baer and Wolf Eyes.

HARAPPIAN NIGHT RECORDINGS

Harappian Night Recordings is the solo moniker of Hunter Gracchus member Syed Kamran Ali. Since releasing his critically acclaimed debut album, The Glorious Gongs Of Hainuwele, on Bo Weavil early in 2009 (voted 11th in The Wire magazine’s end of year poll) Ali has produced a slew of increasingly deranged albums on various microlabels across Europe. These releases have seen him move far beyond ‘musical forgeries from an imagined east’ into ambivalent and disturbed psychic territories that have parodied, mutated and ripped apart singular fourth world cosmopolitanisms in a disjunctured maelstrom of frenetic, conflicting and distorted energies. This will be Ali’s debut performance as Harappian Night Recordings in the UK.

PASCAL NICHOLS

Pascal Nichols is one half of improvising duo Part Wild Horses Mane on Both Sides, who were recently justly described by a conspicuous music critic as the best live band active in the UK right now. Although, as a percussionist, Nichols has collaborated with a number of free improv luminaries it would be wrong to judge him by the criteria of earlier generations. Although technically proficient, the really intriguing qualities of Nichols lie in his insatiable interest in sound and his endless and authentic pursuit of the elusive wild mercury of genuinely collaborative improvisation, undistracted by the idiomatic flippancies and rodomontade of much free improv.

These three unique artists will be performing as a trio and Ludo Mich will also be doing a solo set.

Akke Phallus Duo

Also on the night there will be a performance by Akke Phallus Duo. A long overdue and much anticipated collaboration between Ben Morris of Chora and Jon Marshall of The Hunter Gracchus and Singing Knives Records. Postally sharing raw voice, poached acousmatic sound & brut instrumental ingredients, shitting on Eno's Fourth World confluence of privilege, they navigate modes of avant-experimentation open to the freedom & potential of this new duo dynamic. Wheezing & stuttering non-musics through broken mics and burst bellowed reeds, they integrate the spectres of position, loss, resistance and the fruits of free-hybridity from the comfort and confusions of the First World.

http://www.singingknivesrecords.co.uk/

http://cafeoto.co.uk/

Address: 8-12 Ashwin St, Dalston, London, E8 3DL

Videos from Oxfam poetry reading on Nov 9th

2011-11-16T11:24:00.000-08:00

David Lehman, Denise Riley & Todd Swift read for Oxfam on Wednesday 9th of November 2011 at Oxfam Books & Music on Marylebone High Street. Supported by The Kingston Writing School.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7QnDHePgxA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThQRt_bJ57k

London Sinfonietta newsletter

2011-11-12T11:23:00.001-08:00

Blue Touch Paper collaborators announced

We are also very pleased to announce the successful applicants to our Blue Touch Paper programme. They are:

- Steve Potter (composer) & Kélina Gotman (writer/dramaturg), who will be working on a music-theatre piece exploring the reality of dreams.

- Elspeth Brooke (composer), Seonaid Goody (puppeteer) & Anna G Jones (director) will work with music, puppetry and film techniques to create a re-imagining of the Greek myth of Persephone.

- Philip Venables (composer) & Steven J Fowler (poet) will be exploring the violence, sanctioned by society, that is boxing, through music and poetry.

Click here for more information about Blue Touch Paper click here.

Minimum Security Prison Poetry

2011-11-10T14:40:00.000-08:00

Minimum security prison poetry

Contemporary British poets read original poetry on the subject of incarceration & imprisonment.

Tim Atkins / Richard Barrett / Julia Calver / Tom Chivers / Matthew Gregory /Stephen Emmerson / Jeff Hilson / Colin Herd / Holly Hopkins / Kirsty Irving / Antony John / Mendoza / Tamarin Norwood / Chris Page / Holly Pester / Sam Riviere / Jon K Shaw / Marcus Slease / Andy Spragg / Steve Willey / SJ Fowler, launching the collection Minimum Security Prison Dentistry published by Anything Anymore Anywhere press.

Minimum Security Prison Poetry,
The Horse Hospital
Wednesday November 23rd 2011 @ 7pm
Entrance free

Praise for SJ Fowler’s Minimum Security Prison Dentistry:

If you think poetry is some sedate pursuit carried out in an ivory tower then you obviously ain’t read Steven Fowler. He makes Bukowski look like Billy Childish and Billy Childish look like William MacGonagall!
- Stewart Home

Punchy, lyrical, and incandescently inventive, by turns surreal and disarmingly direct, these kaleidoscopic poems enter the house of prison language via the back door and take no hostages. If Captain Beefheart had done St. Quentin, the result might have sounded something like this
- Philip Terry

This could be the worst book you will read this year, the discussion is violence, but really it’s a punch from a cup cake, using narrative and expressionist syntax. His celebration of where is, has a clipped disgust
- Allen Fisher

Imagine a Boys Own Paper landscape with True Crime architecture. Laurence Harvey dodges from building to country trying to evade CCTV whose sound footage runs through Babelfish. The smells are Jack London, the light is Genet and the memories are Edgar Lee Masters. Equally in words is Steven Johannes Fowler’s Minimum Security Prison Dentistry: elegant, coldly funny, at times emotional, textured with occasional accidental/intentional solecisms; but getting the work done. Nowadays most pages labelled “poetry” are unreadable and uninteresting: these give hope. Anyone who can name-check Joe Arpaio and Jacky le Mat, and reference the cover-texture of an Anselm Hollo book from the sixties rides my particular range
- Tom Raworth

For Mercy, this Friday in Liverpool, with Ben Morris

2011-11-07T13:44:00.000-08:00

http://www.mercyonline.co.uk/who-we-are/what-we-are-up-to/article/last-2011-overlap-commission-steven-fowler-and-chora-do-liverpool-music-week

Steven Fowler( 2 )

Last 2011 Overlap Commission: Steven Fowler and Chora do Liverpool Music Week

03/11/11 Live
by Nathan Jones

We're teaming up with Samizdat and La Racaille again on brilliant new music/language/art event, this time exploring trance, mantra and the loop at Liverpool Music Week. Featuring a new commission with Steven Fowler and an amazing new setting of Dustin Wong's seminal Infinite Love album set for guitar orchestra by wizz-kid Jon Davies...... read on by clicking the link

Norðdahl shines in the essay form

2011-11-06T15:55:00.000-08:00

The amazing Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl has just published (in english) a collection of essays and columns about poetry, literature, literary politics, called 'Booby, Be Quiet!' (a very learnéd reference to Auden's translation of the Eddas) with poEsia.

The book is currently available on the poEsia website via:http://www.norddahl.org/english/2011/10/booby-be-quiet/ but it can also be downloaded as a pdf for free, though a donation is appreciated. It’s a fascinating collection of criticism from one of Europe’s most exciting poets.

Maintenant #78 - Damir Sodan

2011-11-06T15:54:00.000-08:00

Though his work is utterly modern and could only be of the now, Damir Šodan, as a man, recalls a different age. Cosmopolitan, engaged, political, satirically adept and poetically versatile, he is a poet who defines and embodies one of Europe’s great, surging contemporary traditions, that is Croatia since the turn of the millennium. One of the most active and veracious translators and editors on the continent, he has won international awards for his plays and finds employment at the Hague, as a translator for the United Nations War Tribunal. This is beside his reputation as a poet, which is considerable and deservingly ever growing. His work is striking for its elasticity, its precision and its ability to retain power amidst a wit rarely found in modern letters. In a typically generous and eloquent interview, discussing everything from war crimes tribunals to the Croatian poetic tradition, we present a locus of modern European poetry, Damir Šodan.

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/maintenant-78-damir-sodan/

I'm very pleased to say we have published ten of Damir's poems in English alongside the interview

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/ten-poems-damir-sodan/

Recipes published in Otoliths

2011-10-31T17:08:00.000-07:00

a new issue of Otoliths for spring 2011. As ever it's one of the most considered and wide ranging poetic publications online. Features a mass of poets including excellent standouts Márton Koppány, J. D. Nelson, Felino A. Soriano, Grzegorz Wróblewski and sean burn.

I think this is my fifth or sixth time in Otoliths. These poems are from Minimum Security Prison Dentistry, the collection launched this month.

http://the-otolith.blogspot.com/2011/09/sj-fowler-recipe-1-pale-of-boiling.html

the Other room - my experience & an interview with its founders

2011-10-29T15:05:00.000-07:00

I've just returned from reading at the Other room in the old abbey inn in central Manchester, it was the 29th edition of the series and one of the highlights of my year in terms of poetry.

The invitation had a special significance for me. Firstly, the Other room is a project I have followed as closely as any other - the web presence being a vital resource for British poetry, plus the readings are always meticulously recorded, both with performances and interviews and I've been able to follow some of my favourite poets partaking - Tim Atkins, Jeff Hilson, Philip Terry, Holly Pester etc... Secondly, those who organise the series, and seem to represent succinctly the surge of amazing innovative poetry emerging from the contemporary North West scene, have been instrumental in my writing (Tom Jenks gave me my first magazine publication in the sorely missed Parameter, Scott Thurston was one of the first to offer me invaluable critique and support, and Alec Newman published my first collection.) Thirdly, and finally, I have come to see the series as an inspiration for the events I organise and the spirit in which poetry is fostered and supported. The Other room is never dictatorial, never knowing, exclusive or smug - it is open, collective, earnest and centred entirely around the poetry itself. The excellence of work is matched by the atmosphere in which the readings take place and are organised.

The hospitality afforded me was remarkable, those in attendance were welcoming and receptive and the discussions in and around the event were as enjoyable to me as the reading itself. It is a remarkable project and one whose increasing legacy reflects correctly, and brilliantly, on its instigators.

Here is an interview with those who run the series, James Davies, Scott Thurston and Tom Jenks, a resource I am sure will be important in the future:

new Covers project website

2011-10-29T15:03:00.000-07:00

http://coversproject.wordpress.com/

I have now collected all 23 of the Covers on one website and will use this as the project's base. The site features new covers by Richard Barrett, Colin Herd, James Davies, Scott Thurston et al. It is shaping into something I am increasingly pleased with, and its simplicity is its virtue at this point I think

The Other Room 29 - my reading in Manchester

2011-10-29T15:02:00.000-07:00

Voiceworks 2012 - the first day

2011-10-29T15:01:00.000-07:00

Patrick Coyle & SJ Fowler at You Call Him Doctor Jones!

2011-10-23T12:43:00.000-07:00

This was really fun.

Patrick Coyle and SJ Fowler read their collaboration "RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK' Screenplay. REVISED REVISED THIRD DRAFT, AUGUST 1979" for the Penned in the Margins curated homage to the Indiana Jones franchise 'You Call Him Doctor Jones!', featuring music, performance, comedy and poetry. Which is kind of what this is.

Blue Touch Paper scheme with the London Sinfonietta

2011-10-23T12:42:00.000-07:00

Following an open, national call the London Sinfonietta has selected a group of composers and multidisciplinary artists to participate in the Blue Touch Paper programme. The three composer-collaborator partnerships, who have all been awarded a Jerwood Blue Touch Paper bursary, are:

- Steve Potter (composer) & Kélina Gotman (Writer/Dramaturg)

- Elspeth Brooke (composer), Seonaid Goody (Puppeteer) & Anna G Jones (Director)

- Philip Venables (composer) & Steven J Fowler (Poet)

The three exciting ideas for new multidisciplinary pieces from these partnerships will be presented at a work-in-progress preview event in May 2012. The projects are:

- a music-theatre piece which explores the reality of dreams through staging political, utopian and everyday examples such as Martin Luther King’s rally against the Vietnam War.

- a re-imagining of the Greek myth of Persephone, experimenting how effects from early animated film could transfer to the art of puppetry, integrated with live musical performance

- a piece exploring the violence, sanctioned by society, that is boxing, through music and poetry

Maintenant Camarade - pictures

2011-10-23T12:37:00.001-07:00

http://alexanderkell.tumblr.com/ These two incredible pictures above were taken by Alexander Vernon Kell at the Maintenant event on Saturday October 15th. The one below was taken by David Kelly, of me, filming shibbit.

Preparing for Mercy performance with Ben Morris

2011-10-21T14:18:00.001-07:00

http://www.mercyonline.co.uk The intial studio rehearsals session for a piece to be performed in Liverpool in November 11th by Ben Morris and Steve Fowler. The piece will utilise sound poetry and be themed on the Yiddish language and concepts within the Jewish religious tradition, or something.

Transtromer review up on Eyewear

2011-10-21T14:03:00.000-07:00

http://toddswift.blogspot.com/2011/10/guest-review-sj-fowler-on-new-nobel.html

Maintenant Camarade - the visitors

2011-10-21T14:00:00.000-07:00

All the poets from outside of the UK were truly remarkable. Check out the unforgettable Karlis Verdins, a witty poet indeed

Maintenant Camarade - the collaborations

2011-10-21T13:58:00.000-07:00

"On October 15th 2011, 3:AM Magazine’s Maintenant series hosted it’s largest event so far at the Rich Mix centre near Brick Lane in London. Poets from Russia, Macedonia and Latvia joined nine pairs of British poets in a memorable evening of performance and poetry. The British poets were paired as part of the first Maintenant Camarade project, with their efforts published in a chapbook by the Red Ceilings press. The videos below are shown in the order of the readings given on the evening, an event which showed the depth of talent, inventiveness and wit in contemporary European poetry."

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/maintenant-camarade-2/

Thanks to everyone who came, it was by far our best event, both in attendance and quality. Thanks to Literature across frontiers and Arc publications, and of course to all of the 23 readers, who read remarkably. It was a special evening and I'm happy to say the next Camarade project has commenced, and the reading will take place next February at the Rich mix centre.

Covers!! episodes 8-19

2011-10-21T13:50:00.000-07:00

Tom Jenks covers Stuart Mills

Lidija Dimkovska covers Ales Mustar

Sam Riviere covers Linh Dinh

Tim Atkins covers Clark Coolidge

SJ Fowler covers Gunnar Ekelof

Patrick Coyle covers Fernando Pessoa

Marcus Slease covers Musa McKim

Emily Critchley covers William Shakespeare

Tamarin Norwood covers Clarence Major

Ollie Evans covers Kurt Schwitters

Jeff Hilson covers Piero Heliczer

Review of Tomas Tranströmer

2011-10-16T15:57:00.000-07:00

The Swedish book review commissioned this review of the new nobel prize winner, Tomas Tranströmer, a few months back. Thanks to Anna Paterson Here it is online.

http://www.swedishbookreview.com/show-review.php?i=329

Kaminsky & Co at Oxfam poetry

2011-10-16T15:54:00.001-07:00

I had the pleasure of attending one of the regular Oxfam poetry events in Marylebone and took some videos of the readings. Enjoy.

Todd Colby - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4yG4OJkYuA

Khin Aung Aye and James Byrne - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpuS8iycXDI

Annie Freud - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBfh--e3544

Other room preview

2011-10-15T03:44:00.000-07:00

SJ Fowler – a preview

14/10/2011 at 8:00 am · Filed under Events and tagged: SJ Fowler, Tom Jenks

SJ Fowler will be reading at the next Other Room on Wednesday 26th October at The Old Abbey Inn on Manchester Science Park. You can read some of his work a the Voiceworks site and much more at hisown site. Or watch a film of him reading at the launch of his collection Fights on Veer Publications.

Preview of Colin Herd to follow soon. Click here to read a preview of Jennifer Cooke.

Camarade publication available to buy

2011-10-15T03:39:00.000-07:00

Now available to buy at www.theredceilingspress.co.uk, I edited the booklet and it features an introduction before the incredible poetry of Tom Jenks & Chris McCabe, Holly Pester & Patrick Coyle, James Wilkes & Ghazal Mosadeq, Tom Chivers & Simon Barraclough, James Byrne & Sandeep Parmar, Sam Riviere & Jack Underwood, Emily Critchley & Tamarin Norwood, Marcus Slease & Tim Atkins, Sean Bonney & Jeff Hilson. It's only 5 pounds and its without doubt the best work I've ever edited, the poets have really excelled in showing the potentiality of collaboration and the quality of work being produced in contemporary circles.

Maintenant poetry at "Linguistically innovative €#*@$?!"

2011-10-15T03:37:00.000-07:00

"Notes on old new little presses part seven
& parts one, two,three, four, five,six

For a 21st century expanding European generation of poets new international networks are emerging fast. Through, for example, 3:AM Magazine Maintenant and Poetry Kit hub - the internet provides updates on local, regional, and international scenes. Universities have their own creative writing bubbles and old London town has plural exhibition/music/poetry spaces.

Both Norwegian poet Paal Bjelke Andersen and Swedish poet Aase Berg, in recent Maintenant interviews with younger generation British poet Steven Johannes Fowler; seem to suggest, in their individual and distinctive ways that 'innovative', 'experimental' may now be the dominant published poetry in Scandinavia, with small press its mainstream vehicle.

Maintenant: the Camarade project has brought into the picture new collaborative possibilities between English-speaking and foreign language-speaking poets.

New small publishers like The Red Ceilings Press, who've published the Maintenant Camarade mini-anthology as perfect-trim A6 artzine, produce inexpensive limited edition print plus open access screen readings. Working from regional locality it is difficult to envisage this little press and others as new mainstream-in-the-making.

These rough 'Notes on the old new little press' will conclude next post before addition to planned Songs Our Teachers Learn Us, or, Lessons To Be Learnedpublication."

Thanks to MJ Weller at http://egnep.blogspot.com/

Maintenant #75 - Anna Auziņa

2011-10-15T03:29:00.001-07:00

One of the stars of the contemporary Latvian poetry scene, Anna Auziņa, already established as a classically trained artist, has emerged as a constant and resonant force in Baltic poetry over the last decade. Her work maintains a resolute affinity with the organic and perhaps overtly poetic language of her own personal journey as an artist. Gifted in both fields, her work reveals this creative agility in its imagery and tone. One of the five non-British poets visiting for the Maintenant Camarade event in the East end of London this October 2011, we are pleased to welcome our 75th interviewee in the Maintenant series.

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/maintenant-75-anna-auzina/

Accompanying the interview are four of Anna's poems.

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/four-poems-anna-auzina/

Maintenant #76 - Kārlis Vērdiņš

2011-10-15T03:22:00.001-07:00

One of the most versatile young poets writing in the Baltic, Latvian Kārlis Vērdiņš is a renowned critic and a prize winning poet. Already included in two of the most important anthologies of young poets from Central and Eastern Europe in the English language ‘A Fine Line’ (Arc Publications, 2004) and ‘Six Latvian Poets’ (Arc Publications, 2011), Kārlis Vērdiņš has already begun to establish his legacy outside of Latvia. We are especially pleased that he is one of the five visiting poets to read at our largest event in London yet, Maintenant XI: Camarade. October 15th will see him read along side some of the finest poets in Europe, undoubtedly where he belongs.

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/maintenant-76-karlis-verdins/

Accompanying the interview are two poems by Kārlis, translated by Ieva Lešinska

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/two-poems-19/

Patrick Coyle at the Concrete cafe

2011-10-08T11:46:00.000-07:00

Go Patrick Coyle. Worth skipping to 7 minutes and 55 seconds into the video, in my opinion

just two weeks until the big Maintenant event: Camarade!

2011-09-30T13:39:00.000-07:00

Poetry Book Society article

2011-09-27T13:49:00.000-07:00

http://www.poetrybooks.co.uk/poetry_portal/knives_fists_and_spoons

Huge thanks to Peter Hughes

I hope Alec Newman and Steven Fowler are having a relaxing break this summer. They have been busy.

Earlier this year, Alec Newman's Knives, Forks and Spoons Press was shortlisted for the Michael Marks Award for outstanding UK publisher of poetry in pamphlet form. It is easy to understand why. KF&S has been putting out an amazing range of innovative poetry at an extraordinary rate. There is a buzz and an urgency about the whole project which has made it a particularly welcome addition to the British poetry scene. The website is riddled with unpredictability - as well as some enticing offers, such as three books for £10.

The first KF&S pamphlet I can remember reading was by S J Fowler and was the first in his fightsseries. There are now at least twenty of these, each one inspired by a different boxer. The first fifteen have been assembled and published in a single volume by Veer books, in July 2011, under the title fights cycles I-XV.

Maggie O'Sullivan describes this as a dazzling, visceral, proficient, kinetic work. Tim Atkins agrees, saying there are not many books of poetry where you turn the page not knowing what is coming next, but this is one of them.

Steven Fowler was born in Cornwall in 1983. He studied philosophy at Durham, then at the University of London. Somehow he finds time to edit the Maintenant interview series for 3 am magazine, write extensively, study for a PhD in contemporary poetics at Birkbeck, and hold down a job at the British Museum. He has been an employee of the museum since 2007 and its vast holdings inform his recent volume Red Museum, (Knives, Forks and Spoons Press, 2011).

It is difficult to convey the breadth of reference in this book. Perhaps listing a few of the titles will give some idea: a cubic mile is sufficient to contain one hundred billion souls, provided they are packed tightly, 'like anchovies'; the Crusaders treacherously Crucify those taken at Odessa; William of Orange; how to shorten the yard; Tamerlane harvests horses; how to enlarge the Pudenda; Porphyria; The Hospitalier grand master Guillaume de Villiers or Guillaume de Clermont defends the walls of Acre without enthusiasm; Blue cocoon; Pagan depression; the sixth fiddle; Oswald Spengler has a go; Jesus wept; I leave my meals to Neseus.

I feel that this should whet your appetite. Iain Sinclair is impressed too:
A tremendous and persuasive surge of the red and the black: conflicted doctrines, scorched paper. Gothic scripts and plague-year screenplays for an apocalyptic cinema. Death chess. Heretical crusades. Hurt flesh. Fire angels. Madness. A grimoire for a haunted river-city. The poetry lies in the interpretation of malfated woodcuts. It is sinewy, knotted, persistent. And true.

So it has been a year of formidable achievements by Alec Newman and Steven Fowler. Red Museum is just one of their accomplishments, but it is the most startling book of poetry in English to appear this year. I hope they are sitting somewhere sunny, nursing chilled drinks, enjoying well-deserved breaks. But something tells me that they're not.

Peter Hughes' poetry publications include Paul Klee's Diary, Blueroads, Nistanimera, The Summer of Agios Dimitrios and The Pistol Tree Poems. Nathan Thompson writes of it as ‘flickering, intense, innovative and utterly mesmerising'. Peter also runs Oystercatcher Press, based on the Norfolk coast, which has published more than 40 poetry pamphlets over the last three years.

Maintenant #74 - Ailbhe Darcy

2011-09-27T13:46:00.000-07:00

Already considered one of the finest poets of Ireland’s new generation, Ailbhe Darcy has gained international recognition for her vibrant poetry and rapidly growing body of work. Being at the forefront of a tradition as considerable as Ireland’s has required her to maintain the idiosyncracy of her own taste and voice, and though undoubtedly, the lilt of her work, it’s care for being read and for being rhymtical, resounds with the narrative tradition of Irish poetry, it is also true her idiom can be disjunctive, unpretentious and colloquial. More vitally she creates poems that are conceptually often unresolved, an act of humility that sits apart from neat lyricism. Yet it is too far to say she has made a break from the tradition of her nation, and many would say this is the bigger achievement. For the 74th edition of Maintenant, our first Irish poet, Ailbhe Darcy. thanks to Michael Schmidt

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/maintenant-74-ailbhe-darcy/Accompanying the interview are three of Ailbhe's poems. http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/3-poems/

Art Gallery Bouncer

2011-09-27T13:38:00.000-07:00

Patrick Coyle & I reading our collaboration 'Art Gallery Bouncer' at the Soho Curzon cinema mezzanine bar in central London August 2011.

Poetry at Aubin & Wills

2011-09-21T16:30:00.000-07:00

A fascinating event held at 188 Westbourne grove, Notting Hill. Thanks to Tom Chivers.

» Maintenant #73: Lidija Dimkovska

2011-09-21T16:26:00.000-07:00

The poetry scene in Europe seems, from the vantage of the UK, to be far more fluid and less divisive than that of the UK. This may not be true, but there certainly seems, through the regular festivals, readings, residencies and academic exchanges, a sense of physical communication between poets who traverse many nations, languages and traditions. In the case of a poet like Lidija Dimkovska, we seem to have an individual whose experience is truly pan-Balkan, traversing Macedonia, Slovenia, Romania … but whose reception is continent wide. She carries her influences with a fidelity that makes them invisible within her explicitly well considered and captivating poetry. A formidable academic, a poetic folklorist, a respected translator and an innovative and elastic lyric poet, we are pleased to introduce Lidija Dimkovska as the 73rd edition of Maintenant (and furthermore, we are very pleased that she will be reading at the Maintenant IX event on October 15th 2011 thanks to Literature across frontiers and Arc publications.)

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/maintenant-73-lidija-dimkovska/

Accompanying the interview are four poems by Lidija translated by Ljubica Arsovska and Peggy Reid

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/four-poems-lidija-dimkovska/

Tomorrow!

2011-09-20T13:31:00.000-07:00

Enemies: so many collaborators!

2011-09-10T04:57:00.001-07:00

The process of collaboration is intrinsic to what I am attempting to achieve, and over the last year, without design, it has become a fundamental resource of new material and environments which force me to be agile across mediums and projects. Hopefully next year all the collaborations will be collected into a volume, at the moment I am or already haved produced work with Tim Atkins, Marcus Slease, David Kelly, Joel Ely, Mia Porter, Tommi Musturi, Ghazal Mosadeq, Sarah Kelly, RDG Thomas, Jeff Hilson, Patrick Coyle, Drew Millward, Anatol Knotek, Marco Giovenale, Wenjing Wang, Joseph Royce Lewis, Katerina D'Autremont, Edith Bergfors, Lone Eriksen, Eirikur Orn Norddahl, Philip Venables, Ben Morris, Robert Lye, Sian Williams, Matteo Patocchi, Ragnhildur Johanns, Michael Zand & Holly Pester. Some are being published in journals and online.

Covers: episodes 1 to 6

2011-09-08T00:44:00.000-07:00

Like collaborations, cover versions are under used and under acknowledged in poetry. This is most likely because poetry is not disseminated like music, via the page and not in audio files, and also because readings are not so frequent. None the less I have initiated a small project to shed some light on the poetry that contemporary poets consider vital to their own work. The first six installments of the Covers project were taken on August 31st in and around Soho and Chinatown. Patrick Coyle was kind enough to film my own, a reading of Bill Griffith on some stairs in the Curzon cinema:

Readings upcoming readings

2011-08-29T11:50:00.000-07:00

Voewood festival - August 27th - nr Sheringham, Norfolk - reading with Emily Critchley, Luke Kennard, Christopher Reid and Kate Kilalea http://www.voewoodfestival.com/

Slease book launch! - August 31st - Soho Curzon, London - collaborative reading with the gorgeous Patrick Coyle http://www.patrickcoyle.info/

Aubin & Wills - September 21st - Notting hill, London - reading with Ahren Warner, Nathan Penlington and Mark Waldron

http://www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk/index.php/2011/08/waldron-warner-penlington-fowler/

the Other Room - October 26th - Manchester - reading with Colin Herd

http://otherroom.org/

Mercy online - November 11th - Liverpool - reading in collaboration with Ex Easter Island head http://www.mercyonline.co.uk/

Minimum Security Prison poetry - November 24th - London - reading with Willey, Atkins, Pester, Coyle, Hilson, Barrett, Emmerson, Irving, Slease etc...

» Maintenant #72: Johannes Göransson

2011-08-29T11:48:00.000-07:00

A Swede who is an American, an American who is a Swede. The irrelevancy of the nationhood of Johannes Göransson is never more obvious than in the multifarious and rapacious nature of his work - it calls on traditions too intertwined, too psychological and introverted to make its genesis of much interest. What is of interest is his industry as a translator. As well as being one of the most interesting and acerbic poets and educators currently at large in the US, he is also a vital conduit to the breadth and brilliance of contemporary Swedish poetry. For Maintenant in it’s 72nd guise, the excellent Johannes Göransson

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/maintenant-72-johannes-goransson/

Accompanying the interview is a significant selection from Johannes' most recent publication.

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/entrance-to-a-colonial-pageant-in-which-we-all-begin-to-intricate/

» Maintenant #71: Lies Van Gasse

2011-08-29T11:46:00.000-07:00

The exceptional nature of the work of Lies Van Gasse, established, formidable and achieved well before her 30th birthday, is clear to all who follow central European poetry and the figures who are now showing themselves as the future of the medium. Emerging from the vivid and remarkable tradition of Flemish poetry, Lies maintains a focus and an exactitude about her work and its direction that well belies her relative youth. Adept and acclaimed at both more traditional lingual poetry and highly original 'graphic' poetry, her oeuvre is innovative and confident, straddling the finer points of language and art. Our first Belgian poet to be featured in the Maintenant series, Lies Van Gasse is undoubtedly a figure whose prominence will only increase in the coming decades.Thanks to Jan Pollet.

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/maintenant-71-lies-van-gasse/

Accompanying the interview are 7 of Lies' graphic poems, translated into English by Trees Van Gasse.

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/seven-poems-oracle-lies-van-gasse/

Blutkitt

Blue Touch Paper event on may 16th

Maintenant #87 - Eugene Ostashevsky

Chatting with Sam Riviere

Listen back to Austerities

Bataille

Reading at the Tenderpixel gallery

Maintenant Camarade II: The Videos

Maintenant Camarade II: The Book

Sharon Borthwick's pictures from Maintenant Camarade II

the Righteous Harmony Society Movement

More amazing pictures by Alexander Vernon-Kell from the Tring Taxidermy Museum

Little girls

One week to Maintenant Camarade: Edition II

Marcus Slease and I are reading at this Saturday

Otoliths #24 - 'if her last wish were' published

Jenny Hval in Medellin

New tumblr for Visual Poetry

North Chicago Review

Update: the North Chicago Review is nearly here!

Maintenant #85 - Gonca Özmen

Peter Jaegar's magical lecture on John Cage & Zen Poetics

a spy vanderung inem wilderness - Mercy UK

SJ Fowler and Ben Morris at Liverpool Music Week

Art Gallery Bouncer published by Gauss PDF

GPDF041 // SJ Fowler & Patrick Coyle // Art Gallery Bouncer

Monika Rinck 'to refrain from embracing'

Maintenant on Poetry International

Maintenant #84 - Maarja Kangro

Coyle at Tenderpixel

work in 2011, work 2012

Other room is the 3am website of the year for 2011

Dept #5 - a collaboration with Anatol Knotek

Gnomes for Xmas!

Maintenant #83 - Daniele Pantano

Erkembode - David Kelly's amazing new website

Occupy

Two new books from Eggbox press

Minimum Security Prison Dentistry - available to buy online

Maintenant #82 - João Luís Barreto Guimarães

Maintenant #81 - Valerio Magrelli

Maintenant #80 - Arnoud van Adrichem

Cemal Süreya & Turkish video-poems

Nominated for the pushcart prize

amazing pictures from minimum security prison poetry by Alexander Kell

Covers!! episodes 29-34

Sharon Borthwick's pictures from the Horse Hospital

Minimum Security Prison Poetry - the readings online

New covers! #24 to #28

pictures by Alexander Vernon-Kell

Other room interview and reading online

a spy vanderung inem wilderness - closing out liverpool music week for mercy

Christodoulos Makris' new book

Voiceworks sessions 3 reading & discussion

Sand Journal #4 published

Charles Olson - in cold hell, in thicket

Maintenant #79 - Emanuella Amichai

Ludo Mich & Akke Phallus - this Saturday at Cafe Oto

Videos from Oxfam poetry reading on Nov 9th

London Sinfonietta newsletter

Minimum Security Prison Poetry

Minimum security prison poetry

For Mercy, this Friday in Liverpool, with Ben Morris

Last 2011 Overlap Commission: Steven Fowler and Chora do Liverpool Music Week

Norðdahl shines in the essay form

Maintenant #78 - Damir Sodan

Recipes published in Otoliths

the Other room - my experience & an interview with its founders

new Covers project website

The Other Room 29 - my reading in Manchester

Voiceworks 2012 - the first day

Patrick Coyle & SJ Fowler at You Call Him Doctor Jones!

Blue Touch Paper scheme with the London Sinfonietta

Maintenant Camarade - pictures

Preparing for Mercy performance with Ben Morris

Transtromer review up on Eyewear

Maintenant Camarade - the visitors

Maintenant Camarade - the collaborations

Covers!! episodes 8-19

Review of Tomas Tranströmer