A note on : Celebrating Bob Bright at Torriano Meeting House

A very special event at the Torriano Meeting House to celebration the work, and person, of Bob Bright. A launch of his selected poems combined with a wonderful community gathering, a dozen people read Bob’s poems to him or new poems written for him. On a hot saturday afternoon in north london it was a great pleasure to organise, for Bob is a very special human being, someone I have known for a decade and who has always been kind, honest, funny, decent, original and thus, beloved.

All the readings are up here https://www.theenemiesproject.com/bob and the book itself contains an essay I wrote talking about why his work is so special, in more technical terms. Please buy a copy to read it and Bob’s 50 years of superb writing https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Scatty-from-Cincinatti-by-Bob-T-Brightt/9781909362994

And at the end a very limited edition ‘festschrift’ volume was presented to Bob as a gift by his friends, brilliantly created and edited by Jules Sprake and Laura Davis. It’s a beautiful book, just made for this occasion, with lots of brilliant contributors.

A note on : Julia Rose Lewis' Traumatism

One of the most consistently original poets working in the contemporary UK / US scene, Julia Rose Lewis has a new book out called Traumatism. It’s with the publisher with whom I did my first ever pamphlet, still going strong Knives Forks and Spoons and Alec Newman. Julia’s book opens with an epigraph from a poem I wrote for one of my National Gallery commissions and I take this as a great sign, and honour, a first peeked thread of an extraordinary book, available here https://www.amazon.co.uk/Traumatism-Julia-Rose-Lewis/dp/1916590217 and well worth delving into.

Interview with David Collard on Barabus

David Collard knows more about contemporary fiction than anyone I know, and so it was a real education to have a near hour long conversation with him, as part of his Glue Factory series, about my new novella Barabus, from Tenement Press. David has built such a generous and attentive following and audience over the years, and he really seemed to resonate with what I tried to do with the book, so an experience I was grateful for to talk with him.

Article on Herri on Federici's asemic writing

https://herri.org.za/13/steven-j-fowler-federico-federici/

One of my favourite online journals in the world, Aryan Kaganof’s Herri, out of South Africa. Really happy to be commissioned by them again to write about Federico Federici's Unmastered Bones series. Federico is one of the most important global figures in the asemic writing movement, and a master asemist as well as theorist.

“I have always thought improvisation seems a concept that suggests its origins, when evoked in specific time-orientated practises, as the ancestor of all things people do. Every plan began with an improvisation to make a plan, or something like that. Every repetition and rehearsal, every interpretation of something carved into stone, began with a person doing whatever it is to do a thing that we consider without premeditation ….”

New publication : Abstract Automatic Autobiographical Asemic Argot

https://stonecorpse.com/sj-fowler/ Abstract Automatic Autobiographical Asemic Argot from Stone Corpse Press is out, launched August 15th https://www.theenemiesproject.com/bob at Torriano Meeting House.

My second limited edition handmade pamphlet of asemic writing this year, and really remarkable how handmade this one has been thanks to Daniel J.Flosi over in the United States. He has put together, as the pictures below show, every single publication with stitches and press.

This publication opens with a short foreword which contextualises it a wee bit, an excerpt “These poems emerge from a time of both teaching and learning asemic writing. Since the publication of Selected Scribbling and Scrawling, my selected asemic poems (Zimzalla 2021) and my online lecture on asemic writing for the Arnolfini Gallery, I have often been invited to teach asemic writing, and in so doing, have worked with some remarkable practitioners in the field…/

And because someone leading should be doing what they are sharing, these poems exist, made in cities across Europe, in various schools and universities. They are thus somewhat collaborative and quite deliberately lo-fi, made of pens to hand, on paper I’ve salvaged or grabbed running out of the door. Made without recourse to trying to be impressive, or aesthetically grand. They are made of a sense of solidarity with those new to the asemic process, smashed out and rough.”

The launch performance I shared with friend Eleanor Wilders, who was also recently published by Stone Corpse press. We talked about our books while taking turns with some assisted doodling.

A note on : EPF recap on Compoetics and Asymptote

Chris Tananescu, Margento, has written a generous recap of the final event of the final event of this summer’s European Poetry Festival, where he performed, celebrating Romanian poetry for the first time at the fest. https://compoetics.com/european-poetry-festival-2026-romanian-poetry-night-by-margento/. 

and a shorter version on Asymptote's https://www.asymptotejournal.com/blog/2026/07/31/weekly-dispatches-from-the-frontlines-of-world-literature-260/#more-39918 which perhaps fortunately doesn’t contain the very funny recap of my collaboration for the night…

National Gallery Lates : the final event of 2026, July 24th

A lovely charming night at the National Gallery with friends and compatriots, and new poems on paintings. The last event of this year, and the twelfth overall. The full readings are here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGH7DBdBSk0 with Colin Herd, Eve Davis, Duya Ribeiro, Sofia Barth and my readings below

New publication : Kawasaki Bush Doctor from Asatami Legesse

A new limited edition pamphlet of asemic poems commissioned and released by Asatami Legesse, an independent micro-publisher established by Italian visual poet and dada performer Dario Roberto Dioli and Zewditu Anteneh Retta. They have done some brilliant work in European asemia recently, with James Knight, Sylee Gore and others.

It’s a handmade minimalist work. It’s snapshots of a massive asemic piece, a kind of constellation work, made on a large wood board in my studio. The individual works in this publication are therefore meant to be impossible jigsaw puzzle pieces, they connect and are separate but seem almost the same. Repetition, and that which is lost in the whole, in the margin, is the idea. And the density of line too, the spirographical. If you’d like a copy, there are a few left, please email me https://www.stevenjfowler.com/contact

The publication was launched August 15th at Torriano Meeting House https://www.theenemiesproject.com/bob and is made in an edition, in the UK, of 30 copies.

Amazingly, for the launch, the publisher Dario Dioli came all the way from Italy to London! It was wonderful to hear more about his work, and his mission, and what asemic writing has meant to him. He is a heartfelt, charming, brilliant poet and publisher, and he was right at home on a lovely afternoon of performances.

For my launch I ‘read’ some of the asemic poems in sound poetry while Matt Sokulsky joined me on piano

European Poetry Festival : summer 2026

A labour of love. 9 events in just under 3 weeks, nearly 1000 people in attendance, hundreds of poets I have had the pleasure to pair, most often when they don’t each other, watching connections and friendships emerge from collaborating, performing, and pushing what is possible for live poetry / literature / text. I’ve resisted writing about the size and complexity and resonance of the process, curating this festival, because I want it to be entirely about presence and immediacy and hospitality as a means of enabling and enjoying more eccentric, playful, jubilant, weird and expansive live work. Thus the less I reflect on it in complex terms (I reflect on it a lot pragmatically and practically) the more it seems to be about the people involved and the things that happen in the rooms. It is about that, people meeting, sharing thing, being decent, and having an interest together in literature. This year was really great as it was mostly stress-free and it felt like some of these ideas had reached into all corners of participation. People seemed to know they can play, right through the events, from start to end. Lots of incredible performances. Lots of stuff I watched and was very jealous I wasn’t in it myself, or hadn’t come up with the idea.

This is the experience I hope will go on for many more years, the festival at this size, with lots of new people alongside those who have participated in the past, brilliant partners and venues, real atmosphere on London summer nights and nine evenings where it was better to be doing this than pretty much anything else. / Every event and every performance at each event is available at the link, it is well worth having a look through the grand photos and watching some of the videos I reckon! https://www.europeanpoetryfestival.com/2026

Celebrating Bob Bright - August 15th at Torriano

https://www.theenemiesproject.com/bob Celebrating Bob T Bright : an event at Torriano Meeting House - August Saturday 15th 2026 : 2pm doors, Free

99 Torriano Avenue. Kentish Town. London. NW5 2RX torriano.org/whats-on/poetry/celebrating-bob-t-bright

Marking the launch of Bob T. Bright's selected poems - Scatty from Cincinatti from Kingston University Press - which draws together over fifty years of writing, this event will see readings of his works by over a dozen poets in a celebration of Bright and his singular output. A true original, a beloved character and a mainstay of the British experimental poetry scene, Bright's work is remarkable for its playful originality and it's methodological breadth, taking in many conceptions of what a poem is and always delivered with inimitable charm.

The book will be available to buy for the first time on the day, and performers include Laura Davis, Martin Wakefield, Beverley Frydman, Lucy Furlong, Matt Sokulsky, Jules Sprake, Lisa Blackwell, Susie Campbell, Patrick Cosgrove, Stephen Sunderland, Mikael Buck, Julia Rose Lewis, SJ Fowler and more.

EPF 2026 - Romania, Katarína Krupičková and dance poetry

One of my favourite collaborations from 2025, I had the chance to work again with Katarína Krupičková for the final event of the EPF 2026, and the first ever Romanian poetry celebration. Katarina is a dancer and performer who uses text and talking in her work, and she has been a key person for me to continue my interest in what might be termed dance poetry, or certainly the active use of movement in live improvised talking poems. I think we were trying to create a contradiction between how static the speech might seem compared to the physical duress of the movements. And I think we wanted there also to be a sense of the movement teetering on the edge of control. And it was so hot in the venue, there is an element of endurance as a metaphor, something like amusing suffering, purging, with a repression in it too. But also we didn’t plan anything and just improvised it at all really also, so maybe it got away from us a bit and freaked people a small bit. Worthwhile, for me to learn from someone who is doing exciting things with integrity.

EPF 2026 - Latvia, Krisjanis Zelgis and human sculptures

Seven years Krisjanis and I have worked together, and last year publishing a book of our collaborations https://sampsonlow.co/2025/06/17/levels-of-care-krisjanis-zelgis-sj-fowler/ This year, for our seventh work together, we decided to return to what we’ve termed ‘human sculpture’ reading, adapting some of our strange lifting intensities sitting around the spoken text to the specific environment of the National Poetry Library. Seemed to go well.

EPF 2026 - Poland, Magda Drozd improv

A new collaborator, an extraordinary debut in doing so, the wonderful Magda Drozd, at the first Polish poetry celebration at the European Poetry Festival. Magda I know through my friend and collaborator Miya, and her energy is unique and encouraging and attentive and entrancing. She allowed me such space but it felt so sympathetic. The audience really seemed to love it, it was gratifying. The context is that I was often utilising lines from poems performed that night, before we performed, and that a family attended with a small child who had to leave as they were talking during the reading. So at the beginning I went upstairs to ask them to return so the child could talk as I talked. I hope Magda and I do many of these.

EPF 2026 - Flanders, Nick Roth improv

Nick Roth and I have collaborated six times since 2022, when we debuted in Ireland. Everytime, twice in Ireland, twice in London and once in Kingston, we have entirely improvised. No preparation, no discussion. Just stand up and I talk and Nick plays. What Nick does remarkably well is follow the voice as an instrument by playing his instrument as a voice. He is intensely alert, very witty, and comes on the front foot. It’s such a joy to work with him, and this one was maybe our best? Hard to say, but people seemed pumped. We got a huge reaction in the room and throughout the night afterward, which was a special night, the EPF Flanders celebration at Flanders House just off Oxford Circus.

EPF 2026 - Alban Low's drawings of Norway event performers

https://artofjazz.blogspot.com/2026/07/norwegian-poetry-celebration-st-olave.html

As has happened many times before, the remarkable artist, publisher and dear friend, Alban Low, has created an extraordinary memento from the opening event of the EPF 2026, with sketches of the collaborating pairs who performed on the night.

EPF 2026 - being Pepys, collaborating with Sean Bell

The festival began with a Norwegian poetry celebration event. It allowed me to collaborate with Norwegian renaissance singer, researcher and performer, Sean Bell. I hired a costume that was (I was told) 100% historically accurate for Samuel Pepys, who was a local to the venue - St Olave church in the City of London and mentioned it often in his diary, attending as a parishioner. I read Claire Tomalin’s book about his life, and his diaries, and then researched the accent most common in London of the 1660s, which was similar to contemporary Devonian. Then Sean and I met on the day, he brought some prepared songs that were of the time too, and we slotted things together, and pretty much improvised. It ended up as something wonderfully strange and atmospheric. I resisted a neatness, shall we say, so it was a little awkward for the audience, but all the better. Sean is incredible too, as talented as he is amicable.

Compoetics - dialogue interview with Singer, Husarova, Spittle et al

https://compoetics.com/european-poetry-festival-a-conversation-with-participants-curated-by-the-fest-director/

Margento has launched a brilliant new online journal (of sorts, it is very high tech!) and kindly hosted a unique in dialogue interview I have done with poets that are at the root of my festival and it’s ethos - Julia Rose Lewis, David Spittle, Lavinia Singer Krisjanis Zelgis and Zuzana Husarova. They reflected on the festival and then asked me a question.

“It was around the lockdown that I realised the festival had become sustainable because it was interpersonally sustaining. Or rather, my approach of putting collaboration first, rather than translation or singular solo readings, had led to people being put first, as everything was being created for the events, and communities and friendships spiralled out from this model. As such, in the absence of people getting together for one night to share new collaborative performances I realised the festival was sustainable for me for an individual as all extraneously reflective consideration, including goals or even curatorial visions, had drained away and I was just doing it, wanting to do it, to see people and see their work. I wanted to get a few hundred good people together, connect them, and have a lovely few weeks in their company, and all else could flow from that, because of that, often oblivious to me. Since then this has increasingly been the case, that I am able to be in the moment of the events and not mind the admin and effort it takes to build up to these moments, for they are just less nice but neutral moments in the service of me seeing and meeting and working with people.”

Books by World Poetry

The publisher World Poetry, edited by Matvei Yankelevich, are putting out some extraordinary contemporary poetry. It is really in my area of interest, high quality work, new translations, and beautiful designs too, and with a significant grounding in European poetry. Due to my festival I am asked often about publishers people should follow to access some quality contemporary European poetry, and so I’m sharing https://worldpoetrybooks.com/ which feel in the tradition of Peter Owen, where I worked briefly when I started out in writing (an experience which shaped me massively) You can see their titles and sign up for their quarterly newsletter and recently I’ve been reading their new translations of Boethius, Sodergran and Seferis, evidencing their eye on the past as well as the future

Barabus at Waste Exchange

Thanks to the brilliant curation of Andrea Mason I had the chance to launch Barabus at Avalon Cafe in London during this all day event. Apart from the reading, everything I did was 100% improvised on the spot and it somewhat went my way. Thanks to the unknown pianist. I read from my novella Barabus after rolling in the theme and finding a friend.