A note on : 10 years of sound poetry - HIPOGLOTE podcast

This is something I’m really happy with - a podcast in the remarkable HIPOGLOTE series, thanks entirely to the amazing Tiago Swabl - which recounts my ten years in sound poetry this year, 2010 to 2020. A unique audio document, I was invited to provide performances and commentary explaining my path though the noise poems as part of their Carte Blanche series.

It traces my first steps as part of the post Bob Cobbing Writers Forum, my early improvised vocalisation work with Ben Morris and Dylan Nyoukis and at the British Museum, then my travels around Europe working with Zuzana Husarova and Maja Jantar amongst others, then my Soundings project with Wellcome Library, my participation in the Palais de Tokyo sound poetry retrospective and works with British artists I admire like Nathan Walker and the legendary Phil Minton. All this with brand new works made for the show, loads of solo works I’ve dug out of my archive and cover versions of Cobbing and bp nichol, also new for this ambitious hour.

It’s pleasing to not only have had the invitation, but to have Tiago’s editorial assistance (he did it all!) in making this document. It succinctly looks back on so much work I’ve found myself doing in a field which has always intimidated / excited me and it’s made me realise things, in making this summation, that had escaped me. More than anything, it’s made me realise I want to do more sound poetry. https://www.mixcloud.com/Hipoglote/183o-hipoglote_2020-08-17_-carte-blanche_-steven-j-fowler/

A note on: North x North West Poetry Tour part 2 - Leeds, Sheffield, Liverpool

All info and funbatch on this tour is here www.stevenjfowler.com/nxnw and allll videos www.theenemiesproject.com/northwest

Held at The Everyman, Liverpool on February 11th 2017. The North by North West Poetry Tour comprised over sixty poets collaborating in pairs to produce brand new collaborative works for performance, commissioned for six events, over six nights in January and February 2017.
Held at Bank St Arts, Sheffield on February 10th 2017. The North by North West Poetry Tour comprised over sixty poets collaborating in pairs to produce brand new collaborative works for performance, commissioned for six events, over six nights in January and February 2017.

Leeds was fire. I’d heard it was a quiet town for the avant garde or literary poetry but this proved untrue, or we got unlucky. In the wharf chambers we had over twenty poets and from many different scenes and backgrounds. From first time readers to folk like Ian McMillan and Robert Sheppard, it ran the gamut. I got there early, in the snow, to be met by Ian in fact, whom, ever the gentleman, helped me shift 100 chairs into the basement punk venue. So many poets I was excited to see and meet for this one, and there was a uniformly playful tone, with a noticeable investment by many. For my own work with Patricia Farrell we wrote a collaborative poem and then I played with some ideas around memory and recitation, recording her poems onto my phone, popping in earphones and reciting from that audio file at parts, and at others, just trying to copy what she had said. Nearly 100 crushed in all told and some of these collaborations will be long remembered, everyone was buzzing

Sheffield was interesting. Again there was talk of a quiet gig but our room at Bank Street Arts was chocked, even dangerously so with much of the gig standing room only with people blocking my camera or stepping on each other’s feet, literally. Some great works here, punctuating a range of stuff, from the high literary to the amusing. At times it leaned into the self-referential, the audience having its favourites / friends, which is really the opposite of the deliberately open Enemies mode, but this is inevitable with such an intense room and a single city scene.

To be honest for me, the whole time in Sheffield was clouded by hearing of the death of Tom Raworth, who was a great influence on me and a friend. I wrote a piece remembering him, feeling emptied and deeply sad, in a Travelodge in the city, having travelled from Leeds and so it was a melancholy day. It took me many attempts to write the piece, I was feeling quite out of sorts. We ended the event with Chris McCabe and I reading some of Tom’s poems and this I will never forget, to have the big audience to read Tom’s work to, a day or two after his passing.

Held at the Wharf Chambers, Leeds on February 9th 2017. The North by North West Poetry Tour comprised over sixty poets collaborating in pairs to produce brand new collaborative works for performance, commissioned for six events, over six nights in January and February 2017.

Liverpool is a city I love and this sprawling reading in the beautiful Everyman playhouse, who could not have been more generous as a venue, brought together many friends and great poets from across the region, being the final gig. I had the grand pleasure of working with Nathan Walker, whom I respect immensely and our improvised sound poetry vocal piece was a joy, though it was maybe too intense for the audience. Some fine works here but it was a rare misfire over all in terms of the Camarade tradition. Not quite sure why, but there was an imbalance in the works overall, perhaps a lack of identity in the event, a lack of successful experiment, or engagement with liveness. Happens sometimes.

Certainly I left the event happy because it was the summation of the project, and the final moments of that were spent with my friends, Tom Jenks especially, a brilliant poet and a great person to work with. As ever it’s a privilege to do this work, to such large audiences and such enthusiastic and varied writers.

Mahu: If p then Q

The original final night, extended now is the exhibition until july 14th, celebrated If P Then Q Press and James Davies conceptual wonders. www.theenemiesproject.com/mahuclosing

Mahu was an exhibition by SJ Fowler at the Hardy Tree Gallery, in Kings Cross, London running from June 6th to 27th 2015. www.stevenjfowler.com/mahu Mahu is an exhibition of writing & asemic art - a novel written upon gallery walls, growing as the exhibition passes.

Mahu was an exhibition by SJ Fowler at the Hardy Tree Gallery, in Kings Cross, London running from June 6th to July 14th 2015. www.stevenjfowler.com/mahu Mahu is an exhibition of writing & asemic art - a novel written upon gallery walls, growing as the exhibition passes.

Kristiina Ehin - Walker on Water

Having just returned from Estonia, I can vouch for the health of the poetry scene, for a nation without a massive population, the poetry sales, and the reception the country gives to its poets is exceptional. At the forefront of 21st century Estonian poetry is Kristiina Ehin. I became familiar with her work many years ago, editing a selection of contemporary Estonian poets for a journal in the UK, and her global success is well deserved - her poise and invention, and her presence on the page, her clear voice, is exceptional and sustained. Her translator too, Ilmar Lehtpere, has been a wonderful contact to have, one of the finest in Europe by all accounts, and I had the chance to meet them both at the 2012 Poetry Parnassus festival in London. Kristiina has a new book being released in the US with unnamed press, Walker on the Water, which draws from the aspects of her work that deal with fables and folktales, readjusted for her own, contemporary poetic vernacular. http://unnamedpress.com/books/book/13