Enemies: POW

Our second to last reading of the fortnight was the quietest but undoubtedly retained the intimacy and warmth and community empowerment that has been so indicative of the whole endeavour. The project it celebrated, Antonio Claudio Carvalho's deeply underappreciated Poetry / Oppose / War series is so remarkably beautiful it needs to be seen to be believed. It consists of three, six poster series that harks back to Hansjorg Mayer's Futura series, and evokes the great heyday of the Concrete poetry movement. The posters are of an exceptionally high production and print quality that each becomes an art object in itself, and when faced with all 18 you can't help but marvel at the achievement. 

Sarah Kelly - Ways of Describing cuts as Pulped paper sculpture

Dear friend, poet & paper maker, Sarah Kelly has turned her skills to our collaborative book http://www.knivesforksandspoonspress.co.uk/waysofdescribing.html and pulped it. This is the essence of the poets practise as artist, which I suppose I am currently exploring in sound and performance, returning back to materiality, interrogating the ground on which language sits. As ever Sarah's foray is authentic, gentle and beautiful.

Enemies: Contemporary Poetics Research Centre

Really hot, really well attended - a beautiful atmosphere of exchange. The reading celebrated the groundbreaking Contemporary Poetics Research Centre at Birkbeck College, University of London, a rare academic entity which facilitates the research and understanding of innovative and dynamic poetry happening in the present day. http://www.bbk.ac.uk/cprc/ 

Enemies: Dear world & everyone in it anthology reading

Each of the seven events for the Hardy Tree exhibition have been curated to have their own unique atmosphere. The dear world...reading was supposed to be a poetry reading, and true to what that means now, in London, in 2013, with this anthology, wonderful for many reasons, being an excuse, a locus around some of the people and things that are happening, that are exciting. It was that in the end, a good reading with good poets, who share certain ideas and outlooks on writing and on the experience of being a poet. It was nicely attended again, in the sweltering heat and as in each event before it, people were warm and friendly and generous.

Enemies: mini-lecture poetics

There is a profound, calming and inspiring core of poets and writers active in London right now. There is no way to see the current scene as anything but expansive and exciting. The hope with this event was that the form, which was intended as non-academic, personal and informal, would showcase the people behind the poetry and allow a wider audience access to discussions which were fascinating but also gentle in their direction and scope. So it proved to be, with the audience sat on the floor around Tim Atkins, Peter, Jaeger, James Wilkes and Marcus Slease in turn. The feeling afterward was one of real community, and that was well appreciated when it really seemed, because the Voice art event was so spectacular and memorable, that there might be a quiet shadow over things. 

Kingston writing school international pedagogy conference

I gave a off the cuff chit chat paper on the Enemies project and innovation in poetry projects, alongside for more erudite talking by Kim Campanello, James Miller and Fiona Curran, and that was nice, we had a nice audience and a wide ranging chat. Then I went hollywood and went home. Then I returned for a really intimate and enjoyable reading in a lecture theatre in the Galsworthy building of Kingston U. Which is quite modern and clean and new, and like Kingston itself, new to me, and strange. I was one of only two men in a room of about twenty, and so went all dirty magician with my reading, interactively forcing a gentle goose cacophony through the Estates of Westeros book in a box. Saw Philip Gross, Kim Campanello and Jane Yeh read too, having heard of but never seen, all of them. Then I tried to walk the 8 miles home, and got locked in Richmond park in the dark and had to climb into someone's back yard. 

Everybody's people

I performed twice for the Voice art night. An epic experience for me hard to put it into concise sentences of any cogent value...newness, consistently attempting to find discomfort in the growth of new work and collaborators and practises has led to some of the most creatively profound experiences this year. It was a farewell to Ben - a friend who had given so much to me - a new world's poetry - a reluctant educator  - a moment he passed over to me something significant just before he leaves for China. and on top, to do this in tandem with dylan nyoukis - a true pioneer, a batwing sound artist, and for us to achieve real moments of synthesis fused was amazing, quite emotional. All I can say is that it felt overwhelming to be a part of a creative moment harrowing love happening live in a room full of very generous warm spirited people. It was also great fucking fun and shall not be quickly forgotten. Another Muay Thai poem, where 666... was attempting to be attritional and meditative this was intended as amusing energetic and explosive and still retain the sense of authenticity of practise amidst the silliness so vibrantly Central to old school sound poetry practise. Chris page again is a fine friend to help 

poem for Chris Weidman

whether legs parallel will sit closely with LEFT hook
that decent dip / switch rather 10th fight over the greatest
ever that has been known because it took you lightly & gladder stoked I AM
LEGITIMATE / not even needing
fucking wrestling to know you can be
too fucking relaxed AS the human tower builds LV
around a dirty bomb & I cannot bell the end
switched / won't back written by jeff lynne
& TOM PETTY on jersey new run in the heat
I find myself screaming AT A COMPUTER ON SUN
morning // off to celebrate haha. you are a artiste
beneath your hands-on-hips im-too-down-to-earth-to-be-outwardly-
-repelling-chris--facade THE WAR IN THE RING
not out A GOOD DAY FOR sipping laps of Wormwood Scrubs / I am sorry again, Im glad the experience was a pleasant one. Ive long since lost the thread of the place's obvious majesty. One day it will return to me and I will consider myself to have been blind.

Fight Music & Silk

A week of seeing my work thrown back at me in forms that utterly supersede my perception of its initial value. First I got to sit anonymously in St Lukes in Old st. and see the work of Philip Venables crescendo with our piece the Revenge of Miguel Cotto. It's been said before but Phili's ability to set music and text is truly groundbreaking and it was such a lovely moment to see our work appear so dynamic and valuable, it made me feel a poet, though Id normally eschew or ignore that feeling. Quite rightly the concert was a laudable success for Phil, whose application to his craft is intimidating. I hope we get to further Cotto. It was a nice audience to be in too, friendly and erudite and I took the time to chat to people afterwards, asking their opinion of Cotto without telling them I was involved in it. All good. Richard Baker conducted the balls off it too.

 Then I had the joy of seeing my old friend Thomas Duggan before he jetted off again, and took possession of our work for the Hardy Tree Enemies exhibition. The glory of the work is not that is utterly unique, made of a material never seen in public before, that it is technologically trailblazing, the future of biodegradable material and has world significance in that, and that it probably cost a fucking packet, but that it is aesthetically so understated it appears before one as a jelly film on black, unassuming and gentle. People will walk past it in the gallery, such is its precision. Little will they know what they are walking past. So precious is it that a framer turned down setting the material, for fear of destroying it. For if water touches the silk, it disappears.

Portobello road pop up shop reading

This was a really enjoyable, relaxing afternoon visit to the Portobello road pop up shop run by Charles Boyle and Todd Swift of CB editions and Eyewear publishing respectively. Charles was very charming, and the books he produces are genuinely beautiful objects. I felt very much a west london poet at home in his presence. Some of the work he has put out, to be found here http://www.cbeditions.com/ is quite iconic and brilliant - Bursa, Apollinaire, Josipivici, amongst others, including this http://www.cbeditions.com/ponge.html which I simply couldn't leave without having. The nature of the enterprise, quite an adventurous one, to stake up a shop full of poetry in the middle of Portobello, meant that passing traffic was not as forthcoming as one would've hoped but the reading was still very much worthwhile and it's always nice to spend sometime in the company of Michael Horovitz, who was as charming as ever.

Enemies at the Hardy Tree gallery

Just days away from the opening night of the Enemies: visual art & avant garde poetry exhibition at the Hardy tree gallery, http://hardytreegallery.com please find below updated listings for all seven of the events, and here, a trailer for the show:


All events are free to attend, and open to the public, as it were. All take place at the Hardy Tree gallery itself - 119 Pancras Road, London, NW1 1UN. All start at 7.30pm. The exhibition runs July 6th to 20th 2013, with the space open for viewing 12-6pm on July 7th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 18th, 19th, 20th.
 
July Saturday 6th – Exhibition opening night:
readings from Iain Sinclair, Ragnhildur Johanns, SJ Fowler - performances from Ben Morris & Marcus Slease, a super8 screening from David Kelly, and interactive asemic writing.
 
July Monday 8th – Voice art
Celebrating the non-lingual in poetry / avant garde music / sound art, sonic landscapes without technological assistance, experimentation in unpure human sound - performances from Dylan Nyoukis, Ben Morris, Adam Bohman, Holly Pester, SJ Fowler, Emma Bennett & more, finishing with an ensemble soundwork. 
 
July Thursday 11th – Mini-lecture Poetics
Short, informal, aberrant talks given by contemporary British experimental poets – Peter Jaeger on John Cage & Buddhism, Tim Atkins on London poetry in the 90s, Marcus Slease on travelling poetics, Chris McCabe on Collaborating with the dead, James Wilkes on Cognitive Neuroscience & poetry & more on the night
 
July Saturday 13th – ‘Dear world & everyone in it’
Readings from the groundbreaking anthology, published by Bloodaxe and edited Nathan Hamilton, featuring Fabian MacPherson, Ahren Warner, Stephen Emmerson, Amy Evans, Becky Cremin, Andy Spragg, Emily Hasler, Sarah Kelly, Ben Stainton & more.
 
July Monday 15th – The Contemporary Poetics Research Centre
A rare academic entity, the CPRC, based in Birkbeck College, University of London is a hub for avant garde poets featuring Dan O’Donnell, Ollie Evans, Mendoza, Dan Eltingham, Albert Pellicer, James Wilkes, Vicky Sparrow, Mark Jackson & more

July Thursday 18th – P.O.W.
Edited by Antonio Carvalho, P.O.W. is a publishing project reigniting the great global tradition of concrete poetry. Readings from Simon Barraclough, Chrissy Williams, Pascal O’Loughlin, as well as other readings including Ryan Van Winkle & others.
 
July Saturday 20th – Closing night: a celebration of art writing
Brand new performances and artworks from Tom Jenks, Claire Potter, Tamarin Norwood & a host of collaborative performances from poets / artists involved in the Enemies project.
 
www.weareenemies.com supported by the Jerwood Charitable Foundation and Arts Council England.

new 3am poets - Neiva, Kiely, Stainton

Three new tremendous writers up on 3am, in the poetry section, which I have the privilege to edit. Bruno Neiva, bringing avant garde visuality out of Oporto in Portugal / Robert Kiely, scholar of the CPRC, Irish rebel language masher / Ben Stainton, witty, multimedia understatementist.


Ben Stainton http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/ben-stainton-short-fish/
Robert Kiely http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/robert-kiely-attempt/
Bruno Neiva http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/bruno-neiva-pastoral/


Kingston Writing School 1st International Conference: Pedagogy and Practice: Writing and Higher Education

http://fass.kingston.ac.uk/activities/item.php?updatenum=2496 On Wednesday July 10th I’ll be taking part in a panel discussion on innovative pedagogy in creative writing practise at the 1st International Kingston Writing School conference in the John Galsworthy building of the Uni’s campus. Should be a really interesting discussion, led by the novelist James Miller. Hanif Kureshi will be there that day too. I’ll be reading that night too at 7.30pm, alongside some interesting poets.