Rich mix exhibition special view reading videos

A lovely intimate night at the Rich mix cafe gallery, where we celebrated the Gilles de Rais / Estates of Westeros exhibition from myself, David Kelly and Ben Morris with readings from myself, Eirikur Orn Norddahl and Ondrej Buddeus. I was a bit pumped for mine, not so good, but Eirikur was his usual spectacular self and it was good to mix it up with more European work. Thanks to those who came out to support the cause, and everyone who contributed themselves to the final collective reading of the Westeros poems! 

Twins born Triplets - a new publication with Matteo X Patocchi

Really proud to work with Matteo, a brilliant Swiss photographer I've collaborated with in London on two projects, both of which have been developed over a few years now. This one, Twins born Triplets, features his beautiful innovative portraits of twins surrounding by my long poem for Pussy Riot, about Stalin, Khlebnikov and zygote splitting. He did an amazing job with the typography and an even better job sourcing a printer to render the work as a newspaper, an original format that really embodies the work beautifully. Here's his website http://www.matteopatocchi.com/ and email info@matteopatocchi.com if you want a copy, they are limited edition. Here's also a link to the amazing images in the book http://www.matteopatocchi.com/twins2.html

Ars Poetica – Bratislava / diary of a magic weekend / poetryfest

One of the best things I’ve done, getting poetry to travel me. I try and only do things that somehow lead to a generative experience that somehow lead to some ambiguous feeling of fulfilment that equates to being happy and positive towards other human beings in the face of the obvious arbitrary coldness and fragility of being alive etc… To be flown, housed, fed and exposed to an amazing city, generous people and wholly authentic expressions of living in language all because Ive written some stuff down is absurd enough to render ridiculous the notion that I might not be buoyed by the experience and I was and am. The beginning of many new things and a multitude of experiences that only leave me better.

So much to admire about the way the festival was run and the poets who attended, and those involved in the program.  The festival has been running for over a decade, and really has established itself through the work of Martin Solotruk, Peter Sulej and others, as a space in which generations mix as much as styles of poetry. All too rare a thing, to see formal poetry readings in translations sitting alongside experimental poetics, electronic poetics and collaborative practise. For me personally, with my desire to see the same breadth and difference in poetry events, to actualise a variance and a pluralism in organisation, it was especially gratifying. Moreover, there was a indelible sense of being part of the city somehow, that the content of the festival was fused directly to the happenings of Bratislava. The support staff with the festival were really energetic and generous, and the venue for the readings was the perfect balance of size and grime.

DAY ONE: arrived, looked after, sent to the floating hotel, the Botel, on the Danube, with Mariano Peyrou, a Spanish poet who I’ve known about for years but never met. Really a great person to begin the thing with, as he’s unpretentious, honest and clever. I need to visit Madrid, sounds like an immense amount happening there. Shown to the restaurant where we can get free meals all week. Beerhall northern European meatcheesedumplingbrown. I’dve ballooned into a full chunk if I ate there all the days, so I didn’t. Meeting all the poets, from as far as India, I’m the only Britisher, thanks fuck.

First night reading, I’m 3rd on the 1st night. Before me, two young Bulgarian poets, Nevena Borisov and Ivan Landzhev, who would genuinely become friends over the days. Really kind, generous, warm hearted and erudite people, and really good to discover so many poets in their 20s here. My reading was fun, felt very relaxed, took some snaps of the audience while the Slovakian translations of my poems were read by Lubo Bakovy, who covered the actor-who-reads-translations-at-poetry-festival ground without melodrama, which normally makes me retch a fair bit. Lubo was ice blood, suited me well. I read some poems from my book out next year, Rottweiler’s guide to the Dog Owner, as it’s a little more palatable for translation. People seemed happy enough, so I was too. Got to witness Mariano give a typically honest reading, and Helena Sinervo too, from Finland, and Prafull Shiledar, all the way from Mumbai. He is a banker in India, but he seemed nice all the same (!). After the vanilla readings were done there was a space every night for new commissions in innovative poetics. This was the highlight for me, as a viewer, and Zuzana Husarova’s collaboration with video, sound, dance artists, a five piece ensemble, really blew me away. It is so hard to make two mediums sink in together, to pretty much pull it off flawless across four is amazing. I wish I spoke fucking Slovakian. I’ll definitely work with Zuzana and her chocolate cookie in the future I reckon.

DAY TWO: Took a tram out into the suburbs of Bratislava and then walked back in. Pretty repetitive, but the parks were really peaceful and full of modernist sculpture. Lots of sexshops and coffee shops. Loads of them in fact, a few each road. Had two lovely meetings, one with the dynamic people from LitCentrum, that pushes Slovak literature abroad. Took me ages to find their office, it was actually in what equated to a literature museum and I felt an intense sense of déjà vu when standing on that road, not realising til I was up in their office that that was where I stayed the last time I visited Bratislava, sleeping in my friends car as we drove across Europe. Two nights sleeping in the front seat. A bit different for this visit. Then I met the brilliant poet Maria Ferencuhova, who I had over for Camarade last year and wrote with Frances Kruk.

The readings were again quite memorable. Robert Rybek, a Polish poet, front kicked the mic off its stand before cursing out the audience and really digging into some weight. Really breathtaking, it was completely genuine, completely authentic. Kato Djavakhashvili read, all the way from Tbilisi, Tozan Alkan from Istanbul, Gerhard Falkner from Berlin and then the electronic poetry performances – Jorg Piringer was a force of nature with his visual concrete animation soundwork, and Heike Fiedler, a revelation from Switzerland, mixing languages and improvising with great aplomb.

DAY THREE: I upped early again and walked an hour or two down the Danube before cutting in to the outskirts to visit the Botanical gardens, and then one of the best fucking Zoos Ive ever visited. I got quite emotional meeting the bear. I got to touch a fucking baby meerkat. There was a white tiger and a red panda. The whole thing was mental. And they had a dinopark was animatronic dinosaurs that could only move one appendage. Must have cost a bomb. So weird it was one of the happiest mornings I can remember, pumped on coffee, music in, animals right in my fat face.

I hiked over the hills back into the city and had a really lovely lunch with Louis Armand. Whatever I aspire to do in London, Louis has done it in Prague, having lived there over 20 years, originally from Sydney. He’s published a boatload of novels and is the man behind the microfestival, VLAK, Equus and all that amazing stuff that wouldn’t exist with innovative poetics in Czechland, along with David Vichnar. Really good to shoot breeze with him, finally, after being an associate editor of VLAK for awhile.

Final night of readings, quite a male lineup, chest puff. But Ville Hytonen! Ive wanted to meet Ville for ages, hearing of his great work through Pekko Kappi, one of the best performers Ive worked with on my events. Great to hear his brogue, Anselm Hollo resurrected quickly. Ville is in Talinn now, Im definitely going to visit him next summer, and probably write with him too. Daniel Cundari was amazing too, a dapper gent from Calabria, living in Granada, he really upped the emotion with some severe youthful panache. Jason Mashak, an American living in the Czech Republic was great too, such a decent bloke, very humble, and his work was graceful and funny. And Louis read, growling out some jazz work that capitivated. After the break Erik Simsik, who seems to be right on the front of the younger avant garde in Slovakia and then Olga Pekova, who created a beautiful, vulnerable / inverted penetrative moment to end the fest with, collaborating with nudity and a boxharp.

On the last night, and across the whole fest, the sociality, arguably the most important subjective factor of any meet, which I actively select or deselect, being as it is often laden with nervousness and alcohol, was wholly generous – friendly, but not overbearing, dedicated to the readings and arts performances, but always personal and conversational. Often very funny too. People had a sense of humour heavy with dark corners. A rare thing for me to stay out late night after night from desire, dry as a bone, increasingly comfortable in lighting everyone up. Slovak poets and artists, on the whole, seem not to regard themselves haughtily, they seem hungry and dynamic, but unpretentious, and the visiting poets too, definitely diamoned the talking without being at all self regarding.. The locals are really interested in work from outside Slovakia but remain in touch with their own authenticity. This is perhaps the word I would best use to describe the people and the majority of the work at the festival, and the atmosphere. There was little pretence, it was uniformly friendly. They also all speak English and I was able to get away with my monogloticism, though frequently apologising to people who speak five languages plus.

It is not always the case that thirty or so poets, dropped into a city together, will gel. I often think the immaterial nature of our creative connection is overstated in terms of predicting how people get on, its just about whether people are kind and humble or not. For an undertaking this size, the connections made between the poets were really inspirational. I had so many generative conversations with those attending and discovered so much new work from across Europe and even beyond. I feel like some relationships were the first step into friendships / collaborations / correspondences that might span my life, and so if poetry is the vehicle of that, all the better, as long as it happens on and again. Im fortunate to have gone, to have been exposed to what I was and will remember Bratislava all lit up by the best circumstances I could imagine.

Teaching Beckett for the Rest is Noise study evening at the Southbank centre

Teaching Beckett is frightening. Teaching Beckett at the Southbank centre, in the QEH hall, as part of the groundbreaking Rest is Noise festival, at a free evening study course open to the general public for free is even more so. Teaching alongside Tom Service and Charlottle de Ville, even more so yet again. But it went proper well, a small generous group of people, amazing support staff at the Southbank, and my focus on the ethical engagement /disengagement of Beckett through paradox and disjunction in language was well received, not having the skill or expertise to make a proper ham of historical fact or textual analysis. I just waffled with purpose and read excerpts from Worstward ho! It could hardly go wrong. Charlotte and Tom were both inspiring to hear, I genuinely spent hours after the evening, which felt an easy 150 minutes (!) researching what they were speaking about. I hadn’t come across Tom Service before, but his work is really amazing with the BBC radio and the guardian, and I was at Wigmore hall just a few days later, rediscovering my discovery of classical music.

VLAK 4 is here and its all that we hoped for


I'm proud as punch to be an associate editor of Vlak. Louis Armand, David Vichnar, Olga Pekova and the many others involved in this heavyweight publication are doing the important work, and making Prague something it would not otherwise be because of their grind towards powerliterature. The new VLAK is breathtaking in its production value, as always, there is not a magazine like it, simply said. http://vlakmagazine2.wordpress.com/


Gilles de Rais / Estates of Westeros exhibition at the Rich Mix Art Centre Gallery Cafe!

an Enemies exhibition
Gilles de Rais / The Estates of Westeros
David Kelly / Ben Morris / SJ Fowler
Tuesday October 22nd - Sunday 26th
in the Rich Mix Arts Centre Café Gallery http://www.richmix.org.uk/venues/spaces/cafe-gallery/
 
The Enemies project presents poetry & avant-garde illustration exhibited in the unique ‘bearpit’ café gallery of the Rich Mix Arts Centre. Two exchanges between poet & artist aim to break ground in the collaborative relationship between text, image and form, as published portable exhibitions, or books in boxes, are wallhung and ceiling strung. / Gilles de Rais – an interchangeable narrative reflection on the life and legend of Gilles de Rais – this fusion of avant garde poetry and modernist line drawing aims to satirise and subvert the manner in which the monstrous myth surrounding such de Rais is echoed in our own time by Jimmy Saville. This is the disjunctive folklore of idiot's resounding through the ages, from 15th century France to 21st century Britain. / The Estates of Westeros is where avant garde poetry meets avant garde illustration. Whether perception or reality, housing estates are environments of occlusion, claustrophobia and damage, and poetry about them has a responsibility to reflect this complexity and intensity in its tone and form. The Estates of Westeros is a meditation on this living space through the universe of George RR Martin's Game of Thrones, and where Gilles de Rais explores the absurdity of mythmaking in that which once was real, the Estates ... explores the grinding realism at the heart of the fantastical. / Both books can be purchased for £9 direct from Like This Press: http://www.likethispress.co.uk/publications/sjfowlerandbenmorris
http://www.likethispress.co.uk/publications/sjfowleranddavidkelly
 
A special viewing of the exhibition will take place on October Wednesday 23rd at 8pm. The event is free to attend and features:- Eirikur Orn Norddahl, one of the most amazing poetical performers in Europe, award winning novelist / sound poet. Here’s what he did last time he visited London http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1P4beEsNIcQ (Preview)  He will be reading from his new publication. / Ondrej Buddeus, a pivotal part of the post-millenial new generation of Czech poets, a brilliant young poet joining us from Prague, http://bodyliterature.com/2013/06/25/ondrej-buddeus-2/ / There will also be the launch of my collaboration with the photographer Matteo X. Patocchi. http://www.matteopatocchi.com/ ‘Twins born Triplets’ is a unique poetry object, a fusion of experimental portrait photography and typographically innovative poetry (about Russia, Putin, Khlebnikov, Pussy Riot – an excerpt read here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-b8KL8StMU ) printed as a newspaper in a limited edition.
 
Please join us for the crescendo week of the Enemies project year one on

C-A-M-A-R-A-D-E-F-E-S-T

The Camarade poetry festival is a unique one day explosion of dynamic collaboration in contemporary avant garde and literary poetics. 100 poets align in 50 pairs, each writing an original collaborative work, written specifically for the festival and premiered on the day. The 5th Camarade event, and the crescendo of the Enemies project’s first year, this ambitious exploration of the possibilities of collaboration in poetry will evidence the true width and depth of poetry that is happening now.
http://www.weareenemies.com/camaradefest.html

{2pm – Session I}
David Berridge & Mary Paterson
Kirsty Irving & Jon Stone
Jeff Hilson & Fabian MacPherson
Edmund Hardy & James Wilkes
Giles Goodland & Alistair Noon
Mendoza & Nat Raha
Marek Kazmierski & Wioletta Grzegorzewska
Matt Dalby & Steven Waling
Tom Chivers & Ross Sutherland

{3.30pm – Session II}
Marcus Slease & Claire Potter
Rhy Trimble & Harry Gilonis
Bea Colley & Francine Elena
Pascal O'Laughlin & Scott Thurston
Ghazal Mosadeq & Ricardo Marques
Sarah Crewe & Jo Langdon
Andy Spragg & Joe Kennedy
Robert Sheppard & Robert Hampson

{5pm – Session III}
Ahren Warner & Mark Waldron
Julia Bird & ​Sarah Hesketh
Ekaterina Paronian & Sophie Mayer
Chrissy Williams & Nia Davies
Becky Cremin & Ryan Ormonde
Stephen Watts & Will Rowe
Zoe Skoulding & Ondrej Buddeus
Oli Hazzard & Caleb Klaces

{7.30pm – Session IV}
Carol Watts & George Szirtes
Tim Atkins & Jessica Pujol I Duran
Ryan Van Winkle & William Letford
Jack Underwood & Alex MacDonald
Joanna Rzadkowska & Kristen Kreider
Stephen Connolly & Emily Hasler
Sophie Collins & Rachael Allen
Deborah Pearson & Tamarin Norwood
Sarah Kelly & Gabriele Lebanauskaite

{9pm – Session V}
Holly Pester & Emma Bennett
Sam Riviere & Joe Dunthorne
Ollie Evans & Robert Kiely
Nathan Jones & Sam Skinner
Christodoulos Makris & Kim Campanello
Reza Mohammedi & Ana Seferovic
James Davies & Philip Terry
James Byrne & Sandeep Parmar
Chris McCabe & Tom Jenks

The Enemies project is supported by the Jerwood Charitable Foundation and Arts Council England. www.weareenemies.com

James Byrne & The Becoming in 3am magazine

Very proud to publish to exceptional works of poetry on 3am today, The Becoming is an excerpt from a longer work being released by Calamari press http://www.calamaripress.com/Becoming.htm a towering Bosch tectonic shuffle of language that is as relentless as it is entralling. Inspirational  work from an anonymous author. http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/the-becoming/

 Meanwhile, new work from James Byrne, a wonderful poet and a gentleman, who has been involved in my Camarade series with Sandeep Parmar on multiple occasions. He's someone whose poetry, and whose presence, in British poetry, I admire very much. http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/james-byrne-drin/


Rest is Noise festival - on Thomas Bernhard & the Black Mountain college

A day of two halves. The first, a bite talk, 15 minutes on Thomas Bernhard. It was a failed experiment. I overwrote the content, wanting it to be so good because of the passion I have for Bernhard, and was far too loyal to the text. I was boring. The art of lecturing is a practice I am engaged in learning. You learn more from a 'loss' I suppose. Still annoying to speak so poorly about an author I love so much, and if anyone stayed awake through my monotone the actual content had some moments of insight I hope. / I then went on to chair a panel on the Black Mountain college with Alyce Mahon from Cambridge Uni, and my old friends Tim Atkins and Peter Jaeger. It was a brilliant hour, fluid, insightful and balanced. Each speaker brought information from differing perspectives, and were all very generous with their thoughts. Peter offered real insight into John Cage and Zen, Alyce opened up the history of the school with its creative spark offset by administrative suicide, and Tim told everyone that poets killed the college. The list of alumni or teaching staff is unbelievable - Duncan, Olsen, Williams, Cage, Cunningham, Albers, Twombly, Creeley, de Kooning, Rauschenberg, Dorn. The questions were also very positive, and we ended up talking about the modern state of the education system and how restricted it is, against such a hotbed of radical innovation and collaboration as the BMC. / The rest is noise is an awesome opportunity to open up so many discussions that rarely get such a platform. Next up, Walter Abish and Jack Spicer in November

You are invited to the Launch of Enemies

ENEMIES: THE SELECTED COLLABORATIONS OF SJ FOWLER
Toynbee Studios, London E1 6AB (Map)

Friday 25 October
7pm, Free

Please pop along if you can. I'll be reading with Sam Riviere, David Berridge, Tim Atkins, Sarah Kelly, Eirikur Orn Norddahl and Tom Jenks. From the publisher:

"You are invited to join independent poetry publisher Penned in the Margins for the launch of SJ Fowler’s groundbreaking, multi-disciplinary collection Enemies; the result of collaborations with over thirty artists, photographers and writers – each imbued with the energy, innovation and generosity of spirit that has become Fowler’s calling card as a poet.

Meta-diary entries mingle with a partially redacted email exchange; texts slip and fragment, finding new contexts alongside paintings, diagrams and YouTube clips. Animalistic Rorschach blots and behind-the-scenes photographs from the Museum inspire a poetic that is dynamic but unstable: Fowler’s texts walk the high-wire between reason and madness, the individual and the collective, human and animal.

The Enemies are: Tim Atkins, David Berridge, Cristine Brache, Patrick Coyle, Emily Critchley, Lone Eriksen, Frédéric Forte, Tom Jenks, Samantha Johnson, Alexander Kell, David Kelly, Sarah Kelly, Anatol Knotek, Ilenia Madelaire, Chris McCabe, nick-e melville, Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl, Matteo X Patocchi, Claire Potter, Monika Rinck, Sam Riviere, Hannah Silva, Marcus Slease, Ross Sutherland, Ryan Van Winkle, Philip Venables, Sian Williams"


"An overwhelming assault. The geography is unnerving, almost familiar, then stinging in its estrangement.Intensity crackles. Tension teases. At what point does collision become collaboration? When do the bandages come off?"
Iain Sinclair

SJ Fowler 

VLAK 4 imminent - contains Camarade texts

The powerhouse publication of avant garde materials is on its way in its 4th guise. Very privileged to be on the editorial board for VLAK, the new issue is just as groundbreaking as the last 3, and the production quality of what is essentially a massive perfect bound shiny tome is always remarkable. I'm happy to say in this issue I've burrowed out a small cave of Camarade texts from the events I've been running over the last few years, with work in there from Philip Terry & Allen Fisher, Tim Atkins & Marcus Slease, Jeff Hilson & Sean Bonney and quite a few others. I've written an intro to the selection, all of which I am very proud to have commissioned as it were. VLAK also has a new website at http://www.vlakmagazine.com and forthcoming events are listed at http://vlakmagazine2.wordpress.com/events/ -- if you happen to be in the vicinity of any of these, please do go and support the enterprise.

 Full list of contents here http://vlakmagazine2.wordpress.com/2013/10/06/vlak-4/ see it to believe it, as ever - Notley, Sollers, Berrigan, Kinsella, Armand, Garcia amongst.

International Translation Day at the British Library

I would honoured to speak at this one day conference / summit / get together of translators and industry professional at the British library on technology, futurology and poetry. It was an embarrassment of riches in terms of the speakers, I actually looked like the child of most of the distinguised peoples in the programme, and I inhabited one of the afternoon breakout seminars with Maya Gabrielle, who is a serious digital programme industry leader, working with the National Theatre and others. She spoke really directly and powerfully about waste and direction in using social media and allowed me to be the good cop really, as I waffled on with my thoughts on the potentiality of the ether for writers, and how the internet is not a tool but a mode, and that its growth is inevitable, its use free and its engagements exponential. It went well, I was able to ramble without notes, feeling quite empassioned, and the people in the full room were knowledgable and positive about my positivity. Robert Sharp mediated us well too. All immensely clever people involved, and great to see friends like Dan Gorman, Sarah Hesketh, Alexandra Buchler amongst new connections I will no doubt benefit from meeting. Also to speak at the British Library is a proud first.

Iain Sinclair's 4th book of Suicide Bridge on 3am

Without doubt the highlight of my editorial career at 3ammagazine, and an enormous privilege to publish extracts from the 4th book of Iain Sinclair's legendary Suicide Bridge. http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/iainsinclairbookfour/ Without doubt, if anything ensures my opinion that the post war British avant garde has an ethical, human, social streak running through it, it is my personal experiences with the likes of Will Rowe, Tom Raworth, Anselm Hollo, Iain Sinclair and others. 

 From the first time I sidled up to him at a lecture in Kings college, having heckled the rest of the panel, from the Balkans, about the turgid lack of experimentation in their works, he has been uniformly kind, supportive and generous. Hard to imagine how practically busy he must be, and having a lifetime of brilliance behind him in poetry, fiction and new genres of writing, it is indicative of the man that always makes time for younger writers, not only in gesture but action. He was one of the only writers who really acknowledged the existence of my debut collection, Red Museum, and his collaboration with Ragnhildur Johanns has spanned my event organising career. Moreover, Suicide Bridge and Lud Heat were direct inspirations to me when I first began reading properly, and when I first came to London. I used the map in the granta book to explore the city in fact, and then found the original publications from the Albion Village press in the Poetry Library. These works are from the books of Suicide Bridge, not published, until now, coming out soon with Skylight press. See below for details and buy a copy.

Rest is Noise festival, Britten weekend - on post-war avant-garde British poetry & BS Johnson, and witnessing Anthony Blee

I was especially frightened by these two lectures. The bites format of 15 minutes is as engaging for the audience as it is troubling for the speaker, and these talks would have a fine audience indeed being a part of the Southbank centre's remarkable recapturing of 20th century cultural history through the Rest is Noise festival. Judging how deep to go, or what to cover, becomes a serious issue, and my two talks were on things very close to my heart. I felt a responsibility to do them justice.

 The talk on the Avant garde poetry of Britain around the Era of Britten was one of my most gratifying public speaking performances. Not because it was good, but because everyone was saying afterward how the information was new to them and it was easily accessed and understood. And it is important information, to me, that can't be spread wide enough. You can hear it here:

 The real highlight of the day was the other speakers though, all genuinely more powerful and clever than I. Diane Silverthorne has inspired me since the first time I saw her speak, I even dedicated a poem to her about Mondrian, and Sophie Mayer is a peer I really admire as a poet and an intellectual. But thank god I asked to switch the original running order just moments before the events began, which I initially was supposed to conclude, because if I hadn't I would've followed the absolutely remarkable Anthony Blee, and fallen quite flat upon myself. 

 He is an architect, one of the finest our country has produced, and he was speaking about his work on Coventry Cathedral, a world renowned project he began working on at 24 years of age in 1956. I can't express the brilliance, humility and grace of his account of this time in his life. It was genuinely emotional to watch him recount stories of Sir Basil Spence and Yehudi Menuhin, and breathtaking to see this building, this cultural hub, this national pride, grow from his personal slides and memories. To watch a man who has spent a lifetime at the service of a professional artform, and shone so brightly through that life, reduced me to feeling like a very fortunate, very embryonic and very humbled, witness. I had the chance to meet his whole family afterward, who were as gracious and warm as he was, who were unduly kind about my piffling talk, and the experience left me feeling struck in the most organic and valuable of ways. They seemed people truly open, collaborative, kind and able to navigate these very real qualities through their art / practise. This article reflects some of the man, and I'm definitely visiting Coventry cathedral soon. http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2012/feb/27/anthony-blee-geoffrey-clarke-coventry-cathedral

 For the earlier session, I spoke on BS Johnson, and I refused the lecture format, as he would've liked, I think, and cut up quotes that were relevant and let people pick the order from a box. A lecture in a box. All can be heard here:

Enemies is Inpress book of the month

Dear Reader,
As you most likely know, being so discerning and possessing such fine taste in poetry-selling websites, today is National Poetry Day.
This morning we learnt from Valley Press poet Miles Salter that as a nation we spend about £67 million each year on Pringle’s crisps, and only £6.5 million on poetry books. Suitably humbled, we can only hope to slowly begin to redress the balance.
With that in mind, and in honour of the occasion, we're giving you lucky people 25% off all online orders until Sunday if you enter the code NPD2013 at the checkout.
Stuck for ideas on what to buy? Then read on, October is going to be a very good month for new releases...
Book of the Month
SJ Fowler is a poet and artist living in London. He has published four collections of poetry, most recently the limited-edition Recipes, published by Red Ceilings in 2012. He has produced poetry, sonic art, installation and performance artworks for the Tate, the Voiceworks project and the London Sinfonietta. He is the poetry editor of 3:AM Magazine and also works as a martial arts instructor, and as an employee of the British Museum. A lovely lad, by all accounts, I'm sure you'll agree. But it seems even the most altruistic soul rubs up against a few people the wrong way along life's turbulent path. SJ Fowler, we are reliably informed, has enemies.
This ground-breaking, multi-disciplinary collection is the result of collaborations with over thirty artists, photographers and writers. Diary entries mingle with a partially-redacted email exchange; texts slip and fragment, finding new contexts alongside prints, paintings, diagrams, Rorschach blots, YouTube clips and behind-the-scenes photographs at the British Museum. Trust us, it really is as mad as it sounds, in the very best way possible.
Including collaborations with the unrivalled Sam Riviere and the indisputably brilliant Chris McCabe this is a collection of poetry unlike anything you will have ever read before. Iain Sinclair called it, "An overwhelming assault," and we're not about to disagree.
Want to know what on earth it's all about? Well, you can buy it here.

Will Rowe anthology by Veer books

To celebrate the reading which celebrates the career of Will Rowe on the eve of his retirement from Birkbeck college and the Contemporary Poetics Research Centre, Veer books, of which Will is one of the founders, have published a remarkable anthology of original work dedicated to Will and his achievements. The poets include Bruce Andrews, Allen Fisher, Peter Jaeger, Alan Halsey, Geraldine Monk, Sean Bonney, Maggie O'Sullivan, and many others, and my work, written specifically for Will, found, pictured, below. Go here and email them and buy a copy! http://www.veerbooks.com/