a lunchtime with the ENO - can you suffer well?

I had the chance to visit with a few extraordinary people the other day from English National Opera. Quite admirably, they are beginning a project where they open channels of communication with writers they might not have come across before, just exploratory, just beginning conversations and this was the first in a series of salon events that they are planning as part of their Talent Development programme. It's an opportunity for intimate conversations to take place between some of the extraordinary individuals working on productions at the ENO and younger writers, to open up windows into the world of opera.  Very pleased to be able to speak to them, knowing how much my stuff with the Guildhall and the Sinfonietta brought me joy and expanded my practise into new areas. Who knows what'll come of it, but a lovely beginning was had when I got sit in on an intimate discussion given by Frank McGuinness, the playwright and poet, and Julian Anderson, the composer, who have just collaborated to produce the Thebans, http://www.eno.org/thebans the latest production at the Coliseum for the ENO. 
It was an intense, educational hour, one that seemed to bracket off the discussion, and the very specific creative world these two men had worked in, so that everyone in the room was fully entrenched in their pursuits and ideas, that of a librettist and a composer. Such was the intensity, the discussion was, by necessity perhaps, at times, somehow private, but not at all pretentious, perhaps a indulgence of necessary energy, of conviction and it was deferent, humourous and profound at the same time. It became very personal too, disarmingly so, and emotional. At times, being someone who always tries to interrogate the notion of the 'writer' as a figure, I was uncomfortable, just by the sheer intimacy of the exchange, but I was, afterward, deeply excited, realising the intensity of this kind of collaborative process, and the responsibility, so massive, that the writer faces in such a relationship. Clearly the trust, and the skill, required to produce an opera like this is so mountainous, that the challenge of it got under my skin. To have to write well and quickly, and incisively, and be ready to let all be broken apart, that is what I'm seeking to do now really, always, anyway, making it new in form and tone. Much to think over, hopefully more to come.


poem for Revolve:R

http://www.revolve-r.com/index.php/poetical-response/revolve1/ An amazing project to be involved in, I'm one of only two poets capturing the overturning flow of a mass of brilliant artists, a true narrative collaborative project, very original and dynamic. 

 "Revolve:R is a project in visual correspondence, by Sam Treadaway and Ricarda Vidal, in collaboration with a number of international artists, writers, and curators based throughout Europe, Africa and the U.S.A. Revolve:R culminates in the publication of hand-made limited edition bookworks and giclée prints. The project explores the possibilities of an exchange of ideas via a visual and tactile, rather than virtual, form of communication. Each cycle of the project we call a Revolve. After six Revolves the work is published as a limited edition bookwork. As site and source of collaborative experimentation for diverse artistic practices, Revolve:R is a vehicle for a new collective language, made physical in the shape of the Revolve:R bookwork."

Revolver
ever an under, there will always be an under
so it is not worthy
of us
to pour over
what other information could you seek?
to race to the seat? to be so small
you are under
Heckler & Koch / Sig Sauer / Steyr Aug
the ball bearing
not a single one revolving but mag loading
under
the 15 caps in the Glock each represent
images ...

Reel Iraq: Kurdistan diary #7

Up for reading, the reading, the grand reading. Travelled half way around the world. Not that this is the work really, not that anyone really believes that, but it is like fighting, in its model, that all the funds, all the time, builds for one payoff and you get a little belly rumble at that pressure, that it is to erupt in one moment, and one has to keep nerve. Well I didn't, Dan and Ryan did, and did so beautiful. It was great. The event was very well attended, the room packed out, the work we delivered was really strong, a lovely moment for the Reel people to be very proud of themselves I think. Zhawen and I read one poem, and the relevant translations. I gave a little waffle about the people of Iraq Id met being more important than the poetry, and being ashamed of the privilege I enjoy, all the stuff writing this blog has made me confront. You can see for yourself below of course, in the vid. I also slipped in a few inside jokes, a few kippers in there. The Q and A was great, unvideod, went full wild west, with long didactic speeches in place of questions and some genuine feeling against the freedom of our translations, or what we all know to be transliterations from the off. I had fun answering one and then rocking back and letting the communication communicate. Good vibes afterward, high energy and engagement. The Reel project is amazingly well conceived and run, and this is the result, an event that would be powerful in any festival, in any context in the world.
Finally I had a chance to go back into Erbil and explore the city properly, and buy some weird trinkets. I returned to the bazaar, found some pretty nifty glowing sponge elephants and some camo tshirts, and lots of dried plum sugar sheets, before making my way out into one of the really beautiful parks of the city. If some of Erbil's regeneration is Dubai-esque, to its detriment, its parks are really wonderfully rendered. Music blaring from public speaker systems, immaculate gardens, sculptures. It looked like archival footage from the 70s in the middle east, families on display, picniccing, hobknobbing.
Ryan & the former writer's union president during the Ba'ath parties evil rule
I returned to the Charmander hotel, had a final brutal sweatlodge gym session and then got one of the creepiest thai massages in the world, before dragging the others from the seemingly endless procession of rigmarole at the closing event out into the city for the last time. Started to feel a bit exhausted at this point, and the night became a blur, eating out and visiting the tea house beneath the citadel. The next twenty four hours were and are a blur. Saying goodbye, knowing that in the moment of its happening this week will seem like a concentrated hallucination, that I drifted upon its regiment, its intensity, its privilege, and never had the time to properly reflect upon it, and all the better for that, for it isnt the norm. And yet still, knowing Ill never be back here most likely, that this has happened at the best time it couldve in my life, young enough to enjoy it fully, and be free to enjoy things in their moment and limitation and place in a way i never could when i was younger, and yet old enough to appreciate it too, that all of it is made by its transitory nature. Nothing in Iraq was overdone. Sad to say goodbye to all, but especially heartfelt was my goodbye to Hoshang. The man is all power to this place and its people. I walked Vicki back to the hotel at midnight, slept for an hour, and then spent the next day, sleepless, that dried fruit brain sick feeling crammed into tiny bucket seats on Turkish airlines, trying not to vetch myself, before haunting the gatwick express, actually feeling ok in London, aside from the overbearing psychological wave of unhappiness that always hits me when I return to the city from elsewhere and haven't adjusted to the currency of banal depression. Hammersmith v Erbil. Then I got norovirus and have lost the last two days to fever, and worse. All the better, Iraq feels a different life away, as it was.
here is our party in Erbil (as inflatable donkeys)

Reel Iraq: Kurdistan diary #6

More eye bleed, happy not to sleep in order to do everything I can do, knowing how precious this time in Erbil is, and that while in it, things are so hectic that I won't be able to appreciate it until I'm gone. I finally got a chance to visit the city proper, though the bazaar and up into the citadel. Whereas the bazaar was alive, defined by its use, and the friendly, approachable people who populate it, the citadel, this incredible centrepoint to an 8000 year old city, a place assailed by Hulegu Khan, Timur, Alexander, is in the last ten years, finally defeated, stripped bare, renovated out of its appeal. In an amazing move, and it would seem against Unesco's wishes, the local government has decided to relocate the active, thriving community of people who lived within the walls of the citadel, in their own city within a city, and place them in a community elsewhere (called Citadel!) so that the ancient walls can be a pure tourist attraction. Walls are plastered, knocked down, rebuilt, the roads are dusty and empty, most paths are barred. So innately counterproductive to be breathtaking.

 We managed to find the one ray of the light in an otherwise depressing excursion, the textile museum in the citadel. Really a beautiful, careful and honest enterprise, Hoshang met the curator, and discussed the programs they have to support the traditional methods of textile production and support the education of the Kurdish women who are preserving this dying art. Yasmin and I shot a video of me reading in the museum, my poem about Alexander and Diogenes. And I bought some beautiful crafts, all the money going back into the museum that is hanging on like a bastion of authenticity, at the heart of a project that has lost sight of itself/

 Another brutal, drenched training session in the carpeted basement gym of the chawarchra, weird scaling the stairs back to my room dripping while all the glad handed, white suits shake and loiter. In the post gym fog, I worked further on my translation of Ahmad Abdel Hussein, and his wonderful declarative poem against the Qu'ran and the destructive legacy of Islam in modern Iraq. I had then the chance to read my workings on Ryan Van Winkle's podcast, where Ahmad and I discussed our exchanges and his courageous journalism. The more I know Ahmad, the more humble, gentle and considered he seems.
We were then invited out to a glitzy restaurant on the British Council, and took minibusses, like a proper tourist party, heaving me with flashbacks to childhood coach holidays. A nice evening talking outside, distracted by a giant screen showing football, but really picking Yasmin Fedda's brain about her documentary work and her thoughts on the medium. Dina Mousawi joined us a little later, having met friends of hers who have just relocated from Baghdad to Erbil. By their account, the difference is incalcuable. In Baghdad, a man and a woman cannot walk down the street together without being married and covered, and the army shakes down houses to rob them while pretending to search. This is not even taking into account the sense of lawlessness, and hopelessness, you get from anyone who lives and or has recently lived in that city. Horrible to hear, and yet, where I was once 'careful' about visiting Erbil, now I feel an urge to visit Baghdad, a very powerful one. This foolishness was dampened further when speaking to the British Council staff who live in Baghdad, and reside only in the International Zone, the old green zone, and see that tiny crop of guarded land alone, unless they are in a convoy of bullet proof suvs.

 Night book making dominated the increasingly tested Reel team, they had to prepare a pamphlet of the translations between the pairs that were being read in the big event the following day, and it kept them up (perhaps fueled by Arak?) late into the night, formatting, sorting, printing. Impressive dedication while I swanned about, offering to help, and chatting to the BC pros and some weird poets in the bar before sack hitting far too late again.

Reel Iraq: Kurdistan diary #5

Niniti International Literature Festival begins! From now on referred to as NILF (by me, perhaps only by me). Nilf is a collaboration between the British Council and Artrole. No joke. Art-role. Up, feeling like a giant sack of dying cats, early, for the press conference. Very spaced out today, no sleep. Lots of Turk coffee. Worth it to see the raconteur stylings of Ted Hodgkinson, and a ten year old Iraqi girl reading Choman Hardi in homage while Ted became a human mic stand, and then Ryan Van Winkle introduced as Dan Gorman, gave a lovely opening speech about the Reel project and its place in the wider literature festival. I then went to do some filming with Yasmin Fedda, a brilliant documentary filmmaker and generous companion on this trip. She couldn't be more generous with her time, and I've learned a lot about the middle east from just talking to her. The rare mix of humility, intelligence and talent that seems to make up the majority of those involved in the Reel Iraq week. I suppose an exceptional project will be peopled by exceptional people. Here is her beautiful doc Breadmakers, http://vimeo.com/m/21718544 & another about a boxer & a squatter in Rome https://vimeo.com/63646958; look for more of her work off the back of this festival, and a work on Syria imminent. Yas and I shot a small interview and some footage of me reading in the creepy subterranean gym in the hotel Chrwa Charw (?) which is low on equipment and high on mirrors. It looks like the final scene of Enter Dragon. It means my fat face will be refracted into eternity.

 We then had a group meeting to prepare for our big reading at the fest, where I will be reading with Zhawen Shally. We talked over our performance, reading each others translations. Such a privilege to read with Zhawen, who is really wonderfully talented and kind, and who is the only Kurdish writer in our group. Hoshang Waziri really helped us again, not only translating but convincing Zhawen that my often radical translations were the right thing for her work in English. I found out Zhawen has seven siblings and Hoshang ten! Four of Zhawen's kin live in London in fact. Clearly the fertility stone is working.
no reason for this, I just liked it, found it in the hotel somewhere

 I trained in the carpeted basement doom gym, grunting next to the weird massage parlour that also fills out the hotel basement in the chraw chaw, before attending the big opening reading event. It was a colourful affair, a real wild mix of stuff. Local writers, Iraqi's travelled in from Baghdad and the like, British Council writers and a few of the Reel Iraqers. I was prepared for the 'allah' wails of pleasure from the audience, but it wasn't really like that in the end. No need to open it up really, but I think with my events and art performances, I'm known for a pursuit of friendliness, authenticity and anti-pretension, whatever that means, in the face of stereotyped 'literary' poetry brouha, and I was prepared here for some crimping, lip biting and selfharm. It wasn't that bad, more wild west than ferrero roche, more a smorgasbord of real variation of style, delivery and quality. Nia, Kei, Zhawen and the ten year old girl were amazing. There were at least 20 readers. And someone came dressed as aquaman and wept uncontrollably as they read, which I thought was pretty hot avant garde. A good marathon sesh to set us off.

 After that we got a bit creeped out by a super strange man in a maroon tuxedo who was touring the hotel, who was touching me a lot but professing his love for the ladies. It was worse than that but I won't blog it. It was as awkward as a really really long awkward silence, and I enjoyed that immensely. To escape we all met up to take a taxi to the christian area of the city for a big mesgouf fish barbecue. After a very long cab drive we were dropped off near the American embassy, strangely underwhelming and hidden and walked to find an open plan garden restaurant that seemed more a park than a restaurant. I had an interesting conversation with one of Dan's friends from SOAS, a Dane called Henrik, who worked for a charity in Kurdistan that provides psychological care for torture victims. He educated me on contemporary Kurdish politics and the work he's involved in, and once we started talking poetry (by his request) it turned out he knew and loved the work of Morten Sondergaard! Spending such lovely time with Morten in Copenhagen a few weeks back made the world feel small while making time seem slow. That feels a long time ago, reading in the literature house in copenhagen, as I write from Iraq. We sat for hours, til midnight, on a very mild evening, talking, eating coaly flayed fish and generally being merry. 

Reel Iraq: Kurdistan diary #4

The days are piling up so beautifully, everything has taken on its own rhythm, due to Dan, Ryan, Hoshang & co. I spent the morning in the very last translation session, this time working with Ahmad Abdel Hussein. What can I say about him? He is perhaps so remarkable to be a literary stereotype, in that you might imagine, in your most optimistic thoughts, that poets like him roam the places where they are needed, writing poetry that actually changes the way people think, that actually allows their secular and democratic predilections to not be alien and individuated and lost. He is a beacon of sorts. His work is outwardly critical of Islam, and all monotheistic religion. It dense and profound and full of remarkable paradox and metaphysics. The poem I had the chance to work on, live translated with Ahmed and the brilliant Lauren Pyott begins with the sarcastic invocation of allah, and goes on to pillory the hypocrisy of 'peaceful' religion and the empty promises of monotheism. My own work for this project, the Arbil Suite, maintains a similar innate criticism of what I deem the fundamental meta-fascism of a monotheistic god and it's shifts throughout the history of Kurdistan. Ahmad has twice had to flee Iraq for his safety, both for his outwardly secular poetry and for his investigative journalism, which at one point was heavily focused on uncovering a series of bank robberies in Iraq perpetrated by a religious political party that used that money as bribes during an election. Here are two links to more information about Ahmed's actions, one of them being his death warrant, written and published by a religious group. http://burathanews.com/news/72386.html / http://mail.almothaqaf.com/index.php/reports/4128.html What can one say in the face of such dignity and bravery? It was a true privilege, the admiration I hold for his courage and conviction, and for his unassuming manner possessed as he is with the kind of poetic talent that makes him exceptional, even amongst a generation that has more to write about than it should
Ahmad, Lauren & I
I squeezed one more gym session out of the Stars in Shaqlawa, truly a sweat drenched griefhole after my week of pain in there, before we bundled into a minibus and headed out into the land of the Kurds. Such beautiful countryside, we passed through a series of smaller towns, including Harir, a station on the silk route. I have a bit of a fear when it comes to wild driving, having been in a wreck in my younger years, and this journey, which took place during an epic lightning and rain storm, in a rackety bus filled with 16 bodies, with no seatbelts, on mountain roads, in traffic jams and s-bends leaden with massive dilapidated oil trucks, while immensely loud Choubi music blared from the stereo, to which most of the bus danced and waved tissues, while Hoshang had full conversations with the Kurdish driver, forever turning his head, made me most afeared. The music was good though, I am being won around to the driving beats and epileptic shoulder shrugging of the local musical cuisine. For example, I share with you some OF THE VERY FINEST POMEGRANATES 
We arrived at our destination, a waterfall, surrounded by plastic animal dioramas, in stead of full taxidermy, and proceeded to marvel at Dan and Ryan who floated on a dinghy around the pool beneath the waterfall until it became strange and mesmerising, see below. There was a sharpened cleaver next to the water and the man who controlled the dinghys often picked it up. Again I had some lovely picture requests from friendly, shiny dudes, like I was the new Aziz Waisy. Back on the road, Hoshang showed us the remnants of the road the British cut into the mountain rock, which was once the only way through to Iran, and looked like a perch of doom above the river, before we turned back another 3 hours drive to Erbil. The camaraderie in the van was a beautiful thing, these people, as often happens when one finds oneself held in a kind of benevolent camp environment, have become friends, not something I'd easily say, and taking pictures of Ryan and Dina sleeping, or discussing the title of Hoshang's first autobiography are the small things that will stay in the memory.
Slightly dishevelled we arrived in Erbil, and the hotel Chwar Chra, or something like that, and the Niniti literature festival. Right off the bat I got to meet some of the other writers, the festival being a bridge point between British and Iraqi poets on the whole, and in Kurdistan of course, some amazing Kurdish poets, including Choman Hardi, whom Ive wanted to meet properly for sometime. We had a quick fluff and preen before heading down to the welcome dinner where we were roundly welcomed. It feels like there is real affection and appreciation for the Reel project, for its care of concept and execution, and it also feels like we are the cool kids in the room, at the end of the diner. After the mega buffet we sat around talking until late, the genuinely charming, hospitable and gracious Ted Hodgkinson from the British Council offered me an education on contemporary Iraqi politics in between gently absorbing my stupid jokes. For the Niniti International Literature fest, or NILF, as Im calling it, he flew in from a friends wedding in Fiji. That is commitment. I finished the day in Ryan's room, being regailed with stories as the arak (a local spirit, like aniseed vodka) flowed freely and I sat on, teetotal, as I had spent most of the day, in fits.

Reel Iraq: Kurdistan diary #3

The day began translating with Maryam Alatar, a female poet from Baghdad, and one whose work I have been intrigued by since I heard of its ferocity. Maryam's poetry is pared down in execution but takes the patriarchy of Iraqi society head on. A quiet assurance in her manner is reflected with poems which can easily be described as outwardly aggressive toward oppression, abuse and misogyny. I had a great experience working with her, helped ably by the spritely Dina Mousawi, whose down to earth Bradford Iraqi charm rather offset the subject matter in a way that allowed me a certain permissive objectivity, one I needed to actually translate the work into English and make it my own.

 Back from lunch and the grime gym (the owner of the complex, once a resident of Derby, and a former kickboxer, sorted me out with a bag and some good kit), I returned to my room to find it being cleaned. I got talking to a man from Nepal, who has come to Iraq for work. I made him some tea, and we talked for as long as he was allowed to before moving on to the next cabin. Him and his wife moved here a few years ago, and though the money isn't good he characterised the place as good because the worst it got was disdain, and not violence. He said they needed to move on at some point, the money they were earning in Shaqlawa was not enough to feed them and support their family back in Nepal. He spoke perfect English, told me he had a uncle who was a Gurkha and was incredibly mannerly and well spoken. His dignity in the face of treatment that he tried to downplay, but was obviously difficult, bordering on brutal to bare made me feel stupid in the way one does when realising the futility of any notion of fairness on the earth. I am being paid to be in Shaqlawa, being flown here, fed, given time to talk about, translate and write poetry. I believe it can only be good at times to find this absurd. He said we could chat tomorrow before we leave.

 I then spent some time in the afternoon working on my translations of Ali, Maryam and Zhawen. My intention was to begin as loyal as possible to the original text, and then veer carefully, when it was required. It didn't turn out like that. The context felt freer, and so I was free. I introduced new ideas even, at points. The poems became mine. I wanted this for my own work, but for theirs...I hope they're okay with that in the end! Those of them who speak English anyway. 
The whole crew then climbed a mountain. I never caught its name, but in the Safeen range, and we were driven there en masse in a minivan that shouldn't have been able to climb as it did. At the foot a group of typically slick Iraqi dudes were just hanging, all shiny jeans and tight shirt and gelled hair, and we began to climb they joined us. The party started to stretch out, each taking the climb at their own pace. The climb was well staired, with views into the valley of Shaqlawa behind us. I was driving forward with Hoshang and Dina and Ryan, and the metal stairway at the summit of the climb came into view as the steps stopped and a dirt path took its place. The point of this pathway was apparently to reach a fertility stone. By sliding down this stone, face first, women apparently increase their chances of having a child. Sounded counterintuitive to me. I skipped ahead and reached the top first. Climbing the metal rigging I made my way to the dead end, the stone, to find a single man, sitting high above, in full body camo attire. He just looked upon me as the climbing beginner I was. Heading back down I came first to all the cool Iraqi guys we met. The first thing they said was 'picture'. Again I offered my white face up as some sort of pleasure for others, happy to do so for such friendly people. Eventually the whole group was at the shrine, with most doing the slide and we milled, Hoshang even mountain goating further up the increasingly sheer mountain. We then spotted the camo man, on an adjacent peak, frighteningly high and clearly requiring some ropeless vertical climbs. Rather him than me.
Passing us on the way down was a whole group of men with shisha pipes and wood, ready to barbecue at the top. At the bottom itself all the Iraqi dudes started dancing, choubi music blaring from their car stereo, doors open. Arm over arm, they sucked in most of our party before the cab came to take us back.

Reel Iraq: Kurdistan diary #2

Spring in Shaqlawa is the time to be in Shaqlawa. Apparently in two months I would be lobster crisp. Now it is really warm but never roasting. I have a view of the mountains from my cabin. I slept little, as I normally do, but because I ate a whole sheet of dried apricot syrup paper and had at least 8 sugar teas the day before. Breakfast with Hosang, Dan and Ryan, already reflecting on how soon we will have to leave. Into the conference room, bedecked for the possibility of politicians, it is replete with questionable portraiture and decor, but we have baklawa in shaqlawa.

 The translation process is full of potential. Literal translations of our poems have been made, and we are randomly paired, and do a round robin, working with everyone. We use different poems for each poet we work with, so a wide selection of the work we put forward will end up in Arabic or Kurdish. We then have two three hour meetings a day, for two days, to cover the four Iraqi poets we work with. An intermediary, who speaks the language, but does so much more than that, completes this translation triplet. And this is the work (!) I wrote ten new poems specifically for the occasion, about the history of Erbil, taking, in an abstract manner, ten points in its history, from 6000bc to 2014, as the beginning of each poem, linking them together through the place itself. Erbil claims to be the oldest town in the world, and so much has passed through it, Assyrians, Alexander, Romans, Timur, Genghis, Saddam etc...

 My first session was with Ali Wajeh, the amazing Lauren Pyott as intermediary. Ali fits the notion I had in my mind of a male Iraqi poet to some extent, assured, lyrical in his style, full of poetic pontification. The main thing for me was that the translation of my work became new. Ali had no problem with that, my work seemingly 'inspiring' him onto his own track, and I welcomed his more careful guidance through his work, before I kind of wedged myself into it, opening up his dialogue structure with a wee bit of irony and references to Highway 80, the Highway of Death. Got in another gym session before lunch, bringing the poets Nia Davies and Ryan Van Winkle. Very funny mix, fitness and poets.
my work in Kurdish
The second session was the most engaging moment I've ever had in this kind of translation exchange, just really humbling and gratifying. I got to work with the female Kurdish poet Zhawen Shally and Hoshang Waziri, a playwright, man of the world and general literary fixer extraordinaire. The process of actually having to explain my own work line by line is deeply strange and discomforting. I write at speed, I defer care, and I welcome carelessness. Yet having to offer analysis of each line, in its deep and thorough explanation I find myself saying so much. Had I intended any of it? Is it just my verbosity in the moment, and not the text itself? A problem made a pleasure through the skill and interest of Zhawen and Hoshang. Zrwen could not be more kind and humble, and this poem I had chosen of mine to translate was about the year 1988 in Kurdistan, the height of the al-Anfal, Hussein's campaign of murder against the Kurds (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Anfal_Campaign). The poem is abstract, but that is what it is about. Zhawen is the only Kurd in the group, so I wanted to work on this with her, but still maintain a profound respect of the reality of that history I can know very little about. She handled my words with a care they didnt deserve. As we were working through her work, a beautiful poem in praise of solitude, Zhawen then revealed her father was a freedom fighter for Kurdistan, a resistance fighter, and after being betrayed, he was killed in 1987. His name was Bayiz Shally. He was very young when he died. Again I am rendered stupid in the face of people's openness and profound honesty and warmth.

 After dinner we returned to Shaqlawa again. We strolled through the town, much quieter on a saturday night than a friday, and made our way off the main promenade to what looked like a warehouse, but what turned out to be a local gaming hall, with pool and table tennis. The owner (with the photoportrait hung in the hall, above) was a bear of a man, grizzly beard and expert snooker player. Lauren had met him the year before, and his ebullient wife, now ill, sadly, and his initially fearsome visage took on a sadder shade. They had come from Baghdad originally, and had a hard life by any standards. After leaving the poolhall, Dina Mousawi, irrepressible in her energy, ushered Ryan into to a local barbers, where he proceeded to have his four month old mountain man hair and beard wet shaved and cut with an audience, and furore, as though he were about to fireswallow. Yas, the filmmaker in our crew, filmed him reading a poem as the cut took place. The men and boys in the barbers welcomed us all to sit down, joked with us and could not have been more friendly and hospitable, as everyone has been, relentlessly. As we left they refused payment and instead, insisted on a memento.

Reel Iraq: Kurdistan diary #1

I have, and had, no intention to experience my brief week in Iraq in a way many would imagine I would. I absolutely had no intention to reiterate notions of patronising surprise that people are warm, hospitable, friendly and welcoming in Kurdistan, as they, and all people of Iraq, have a reputation for being. I expected nothing, deliberately, and naturally, unthinking about the unpredictable nature of human and social circumstance that should define such an experience I am currently privileged to have. A proviso then, all of this in brackets.

 Easy flight, the plane veering into dangerous airspace because of thunderstorms, but all a pleasure, meeting some of the other poets in the changeover in Istanbul. Into Erbil from the airport, the policeman in London asking my destination, and hearing Iraq, just saying Forces, and my not correcting him, so the saloon air conditioned car and empty, banner / bunting strewn roads making it seem I am here to do Work. We arrived at 4.30am local time, and Dan Gorman and Ryan Van Winkle are there, at the hotel, awake to meet us, setting the tone of genuine friendliness and above and beyond effort from the off. A small sleep. 
Alarm on earlier so I can have lots of coffee. It does not disappoint, and the bad taxidermy in the hotel. We all pile into a bus to leave Erbil and head into the mountains, to our cabins awaiting in Shaqlawa. The whole group is together, 4 iraqi poets, 4 others, Dan, Ryan, Lauren, Dina, Yazmin and Hoshang, who all will be instrumental in the translation / transliteration / documenting process, guiding through Kurdish, Arabic, English, to produce the new works that are the result of this week. Very far from my mind as we wind into the Safeen. Everyone is humble, open, everyone is relaxed. They are all genuinely nice people, and it feels like a purposeful collection of humans, offset by a sense of fortune that it seems everyone shares to be sharing the time with each other in such conditions of ease.

 The hotel is too plush, amazing, each with our own cabin, air con, it overlooks Shaqlawa, a small resort town, bordered with mountains. We eat together, massive portions of food. Lamb's bodies go buy. I shotguns loads of strong sugary Iraqi tea, which is New coffee. Check in, I digest, and there is a gym, full of equipment barely used, matted floors, open space. I am very happy and smash out a hard hour of training, sprawling on the swiss ball and box jumps, cycle sprints, cleans.

 Our opening meeting, formal and informal introductions to each and the process. The Iraqi's are immensely grounded, and funny. I know Nia Davies from all over, and get to meet Vicki Feaver and Kei Miller. After dinner we walk into Shaqlawa, up one central promenade. It is the pomegranate capital of Iraq, and flattened apricot dried fruit syrup sheets. I sugar load. Everyone stares at me, in pink shirt and yellow trousers, with a mullet, but are uniformly relaxed and friendly. We close the promenade and some of our party depart.

 We sit in a bar called Rain until late, live Turkimen music. Young boys come to serve us. Some, like people we met in the town, are from Fallujah, displaced after recent fighting in that city, sending them north, to a place, in my limited view, that seems to welcome them, local Kurdish boys and them playing and working alongside each other, but has no schooling in Arabic, only Kurdish, so they cannot go to school. Hoshang from our group, full of life and honest humour, speaks to them, and they speak about their unlikely return to their home, the profound effects of their forced absence on them and their families with a clarity and brevity that is painful to watch, even without speaking their language. Im told 50,000 people have been displaced into Kurdistan, concentrating on Shaqlawa, from Fallujah, over the last 4 months. And 250,000 from Syria. Boys of 8 or 10, working, intent, trying to refuse money from one of the poets Ahmed, their stories told only because they were pressed, making another in our group cry with the simple, profound truth of their being denied things that no child should be denied. No freedom to choose where or what they do. A very brief pall falls over our table.

 Walking to the lav a big group of teenage boys erupts in laughter as I go past. I keep going (I wouldn't necessarily say nothing in England). On the way back I try and skirt the table to return. As I do they all stand up, smiling, making the picture symbol with their hands, almost in unison, waving me over with intense and intimidating in a different way grins. They erupt in handshakes, welcomes, questions of where I am from, deep and genuine happiness to meet me, to speak to me in English, to hear what I think of Shaqlawa. I am made sheepish, embarrassed. I have individual pictures taken of me with every member of their party, and then all on the next table. I make it back to our table, and after more teas, they come over and take pictures with our whole group. An hour later, as we finally leave, I turn the tables on them. Ryan takes a picture of them, with me.

3 poems in the Honest Ulsterman

Very proud indeed to have work in the first issue of the relaunched Honest Ulsterman. The magazine was a powerful entity once, began in 1968 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Honest_Ulsterman publishing some recent greats, and has been reawoken by the remarkable writer, essayist and literary monster that is Darran Anderson. If anyone can remake it as a wholly original but equally important entity, it is he. http://www.humag.co/poetry/three-poems-by-sj-fowler With Gorse, the Bohemyth and many other things happening out of Ireland, it is a fine time to announce a massive Enemies project thing there, which Ill do soon.

Incidents of Anti-Semitism

#104
if privileged presents where contact divine
mediated through a son, then privileges past
expressed in the covenant with a father on isles
a fact about oneself that cannot be changed
it can either be acknowledged or denied
one can live neither path changes the fact
one can be despite oneself, the event in petition to which
is not the eternal presence rather the acknowledgement
of a fact about the past, of one is bound whether one likes or not.

Fjender in Copenhagen

D is soft in Denmark. Sondergaard is Sonnegoe, Kierkegaard is Kierkegoe, Knausgaard is Kenausgoe. A happy, strange week in Copenhagen to finish off the Fjender project for now. Really at the core of this offshoot of the Enemies project was the relationship between myself and Morten Sondergaard, and his hospitality, generosity and energy of ideas has made my time in Copenhagen memorable. To have the time to really communicate with someone, to refine ones ideas in the face of such openness and intelligence is a wonderful thing, the very physical actualisation of an approach I’ve tried to take to my writing, my events and all such things, where process is emphasised over product, with the hope that the positive former will take care of the latter.
vikings on exhibition at Ark books, Copenhagen

My last day in Denmark was spent visiting the Asger Jorn exhibition at the national art museum, with Peter Jaeger and Morten, two wiser, kinder poets you couldn’t hope to meet. Having just taught Jorn as part of my Poetry School class a few weeks back, as he was a fundamental part of the CoBrA group, and been entranced by his work the further my investigations went, this was a perfect combination of things. Once in awhile an exhibition does what it is supposed to do to you. Once I had spoken to Morten and Peter at great length I found an arts supply shop, bought indian ink and paper and a scratch pen and took to finally completing a project of asemic writing I had begun years before. This is the purpose of all the stupid emailing bullshit, all the admin, the fraught running between working fulltime, training, teaching, organising – to open up days, like a aperture, where I am overwhelmed with the feeling of being fortunate to be able to experience life as a choice, to have the complete freedom to have experiences beyond my own small world, in new places, with new people, who are wiser and kinder and more intelligent than I, and to be able to create reflections of that experience without limitation.


Overall it was a week split in two, dark days and light days. The day at the zoo, commiserating with the surviving giraffes and spending hours by the bears, finding Kierkegaard’s grave by accident, visiting Ark books, who were hosting our reading and exhibiting my books and runic art, and then reading in the strange literature house with Morten, Peter and Martin Glaz Serup was wonderful. I am sure it will be the beginning of much, the Fjender project, rather than an end, and over the three events and month that it has lasted I have proven to myself that this mode of organisation, creating partnerships in writing across nations and languages has the potential for brilliance I thought it did.

Chris McCabe blogs on POW series 4 & my Vikings

a well needed and thorough review of the final part of Antonio Claudio Carvalho's masterful series.

p.o.w. complete series
The penultimate p.o.w. takes us directly into the heart of visual language and does so through a challenging emotive language.vikings by s.j. fowler is an anachronistic Anglo-Saxon poem spelt out through runic images. Fowler uses his biographical note to tell us that "he is of viking heritage, and his middle name is Bjorn, which means bear". The poems drives through an end-of-the-world landscape describing a violent love encounter with a woman called Erika. The poet captures the savagery of the viking death desire, as if language is the container in which all the offshoots of their hand-to-mouth struggles was captured in. This landscape of movement, uncertainty, lust and danger is propelled forwards through the compounded, a-syntactic language and the shifts in font type and size. The poem, it could be argued, represents a fierce and honest struggle with the self, although it concludes quite beautifully : "I shine only for you, dove / it's / time to introduce / my distant pres- / ent past into / the pres- / ent".

Mount London rises

Twenty-three London writers launch an ascent of the vertical city 
Mount London: Ascents in the Vertical CityForget the skyscrapers: an invisible mountain is rising above the streets of the capital - and at over 1,800 metres, it is Britain's highest peak.
This ingenious new book is an account of the ascent of 'Mount London' by a team of writers, poets and urban cartographers, each scaling a lesser hill within the city - from Stamford Hill (36m) to Crystal Palace (112m). Ascents of natural peaks are offset by the search for 'ghost hills' in the back streets, a descent into the deepest part of the Tube, and expeditions to the city's artificial mountains - The Shard (306m), the chimneys of Battersea Power Station (103m).
Helen Mort (Division Street) goes cross-country running up Parliament Hill, Joe Dunthorne (Submarine) tackles Europe's tallest building as a metaphor for gentrification, and Justin Hopper (Old, Weird Albion) discovers Doctor Who at the summit of Horsenden Hill. Many of the expeditions in this book reveal mountainous follies, their rubble strewn across the city from Northala Fields to Stave Hill to the ruins of the Crystal Palace. Ghosts of the city emerge from the pages: John Bunyan; the Sydenham Hill Giant; Margaret Finch, Queen of the Gypsies. From the folly of man to reach ever higher, to the effort of the climb, Mount London explores not only the physical topography, but also the psychological experience of urban hill walking.
Mount London is the latest anthology from award-winning independent publisher Penned in the Margins. Conceived and edited by poet Tom Chivers and academic Martin Kratz, this pioneering collection brings together twenty-three contemporary writers to document navigations of the city through essays and stories that are humorous, enlightening and endlessly imaginative.
Launched on 28th May to coincide with the feast of St Bernard of Montjoux, the patron saint of mountaineers, this dynamic collection brings the dense terrain of the city ever closer, immersing the reader in the environments and folk histories that Londoners encounter every day. Mount London unpeels London's history and geography, reimagining the streets as mountainous terrain and exploring what it's like to move through the contemporary city.
Full list of authors
Matt D. Brown, Sarah Butler, Tom Chivers, Liz Cookman, David Cooper, Tim Cresswell, Alan Cunningham, Joe Dunthorne, Inua Ellams, Katy Evans-Bush, SJ Fowler, Bradley L. Garrett, Edmund Hardy, Justin Hopper, Martin Kratz, Amber Massie-Blomfield, Karen McCarthy Woolf, Helen Mort, Mary Paterson, Gareth E. Rees, Gemma Seltzer, Chrissy Williams, Tamar Yoseloff.

Syndrome - arts lab - from mercy...

SYNDROME arts lab and events programme for Liverpool 2014/15 exploring interaction and affect in new media performance Some amazing new works and performances and residencies being spearheaded by the ever groundbreaking Nathan Jones in Liverpool, including Caroline Bergvall, Zoe Skoulding, Sam Meech &
 launch event - session 01
A collision between Fifty Shades of Grey, the radical punk-pirate Kathy Acker and the sounds of Sonic Youth. In the grand tradition of literary terrorism, Hannah Silva layers, loops and subverts in pursuit of a violent sexual feminist satire. *This is the first showing of a new work, developed as a residency with SYNDROME, with technical residents Sam Meech and Simon Jones*

Asger Jorn at National Gallery Denmark

"I don't believe in any kind of profundity that cannot withstand being confronted with the banalities of everyday life" 1964

"Within Nordic art the picture exists before the word. Here, the image is the theme. The words are variations. Within the Latin Tradition things are the other way around. The word is the point of origin"

"A book of love bound in sandpaper, which destroys your pocket"

"not about ideas, but the concrete material, realities of art: wall, canvas, pigment"

"One is often better able to describe the struggle between people, the essential, by using fantastical animals, simple, primitive naked instincts than by painting a specific individual situation (...) we should describe ourselves as human animals"

"Art & handwriting are the same. An image is written and handwriting is images" 1944

The Jade flute / The girl in the fire / The Troll and the birds / Tallowscoop Waunderworker / Narcolepts on the Lake of Coma (titles)
HELHESTEN (THE HELL HORSE)

The Hub at Wellcome Collection

To say I'm excited and proud to be part of this, the very first Hub residency at the Wellcome collection, would be an enormous understatement. The Wellcome is such an exciting institution to be working with and around that I can't quite get my head around it yet. In practical terms in means at some point next year I'll be spending months in situe creating new works and responding to the remarkable output of the wider team, more more more to come - http://www.wellcomecollection.org/the-hub.aspx
http://www.wellcomecollection.org/the-hub/current-residents.aspx

Exploration of rest and busyness announced as first project of The Hub at Wellcome Collection

The Hub - sm
The first residents of The Hub at Wellcome Collection, a flagship new space for interdisciplinary projects around health and wellbeing, will investigate the busyness of modern life. Bringing together a rich network of scientists, artists, humanists, clinicians, public health experts, broadcasters and public engagement professionals, the group will explore states of rest and noise, tumult and stillness, and the health implications for lives increasingly lived in a hubbub of activity. They have been awarded £1 million to develop the project over two years.












The urge to be busy defines modern life. Rest can seem hard to find, whether in relation to an exhausted body, a racing mind or a hectic city. Should we slow down, or should we embrace intense activity? What effects do each of these states have on the health of our bodies and minds? Such questions frequently find their way into media reports and everyday conversations, but there has never been any sustained interdisciplinary attempt to answer them. The Hub will gather international experts investigating hubbub and rest at different scales, to breathe new life into the questions we ask about rest and busyness.

The ambitious project will be nourished by the research resources of Wellcome Collection, the Wellcome Library and the Wellcome Trust and will embrace the noisy city beyond and the people who live in it. The group, selected from 55 applications, will have freedom to develop ideas and outputs over their residency.

The Hub space at Wellcome Collection will provide a base for the group to perform rigorous, creative research and to stage scientific and artistic experiments, data-gathering and public events. While neuroscientists study the 'resting' brain and mind, artists will explore the borders between signal, sound and noise, psychologists will track people’s bodily activity, and social scientists will map the city's noise and silences.

Felicity Callard says: "Our team is enormously excited to take up the first residency of The Hub, and to work with this extraordinary physical and conceptual space to showcase what can be achieved through experimental interdisciplinary endeavours. Our collaborative work on rest and noise will have members of the public at its heart and will create new possibilities for people from all backgrounds to find their own kinds of rest in the busy city. Through our research activities and creative adventures we want to transform how rest and its opposites are understood - and give us all an urgently needed intimacy with a hidden but vital part of our lives.”

The Hub at Wellcome Collection is a new dedicated space and resource for interdisciplinary projects exploring medicine, health and wellbeing. The Hub will provide resources and a stimulating venue for researchers and other creative minds to collaborate on projects that explore medicine in historical and cultural contexts. Residencies will carry an allowance of £1 million and cover two academic years, encouraging outputs that generate new insights, new forms of engagement, new methodologies and new interventions.

Wellcome Collection is the free visitor destination for the incurably curious. Located at 183 Euston Road, London, the venue explores the connections between medicine, life and art in the past, present and future. The building comprises gallery spaces, a public events programme, the Wellcome Library, café, bookshop, conference facilities and a members' club.  Wellcome Collection is growing. A £17.5m development will deliver new galleries and spaces in autumn 2014. Find out more.

Wellcome Collection is part of the Wellcome Trust, a global charitable foundation dedicated to achieving extraordinary improvements in human and animal health. It supports the brightest minds in biomedical research and the medical humanities. The Trust’s breadth of support includes public engagement, education and the application of research to improve health. It is independent of both political and commercial interests.

The White Review Prize - MueuM nominated

http://www.thewhitereview.org/the-white-review-prize/
Really nice to be nominated for a prize I respect, that I entered in fact, so of course I respect, but specifically because it is doing the work that needs doing for the recognition of experimental short fiction. It's the only prize doing this really. The shortlist is really strong, Eley Williams and some really talented others on it, but its nice for me, if this is all it is, to have some recognition for my non-poetry. My work nominated, MueuM, is available to read in full online, link below
[ONLINE ONLY]

MUEUM

Since I have worked at the mueum I have published, and I have written 486 pems. I have seen people drawing freehand maps of accuracy been talked to like they are pieces of dogshit. I have seen shutters shuttered like windows in the face of so many wokers that all blinds have drawn into a darkness like an eclipse. I have witnessed rosetta stone backpacks, launchboxes of the great wave. I have seen prayer rug mousemats. I have been a witness of Commerce. I have been bystander to a five pound coffee. M is Muster, the passing od. You can get a sudden attack of nausea by staying too long in an art gallery as well. It must be some kind of illness – museumitis – unknown to medical science. Or could it be the air of death surrounding all things man-made, whether beautiful or ugly? (Gustav Heyrink) I have lists of people who were colleagues. The rise of the Temporary work in our century, and I have one avowed to those who are trapped in the hotbed of sexual discrimination and harassment because if they complain, to those inculcated with the ones making the advances, they can lose their work immediately, and without reason. Sweeps of the young like pograms, I remember them and make an effort to stay in touch. To have Grigor in shadow of men, a lunaticuntil moonlit then, a dwarf of melody, a celestial harmony, some tiny child model perfection below, a debut in the untertow. For not much. How young fashion students? Seen too robed; roof of the Nile, ark of the covenant, baby hercule as asp, a thesp, a guided tour of softcore smeared all over faces to make the time pass, for it is boring work.. In the endless dead hours of a dead work the sevens go to the tens, the fives to sevens, and you find yourself chasing them physically to express to them against yourself a desire to not only be bored but to be with them, when you are aloud to be so. And more shame for that because for the ones in charge, the honest, are the ones who will sack the girls if they don’t at least smile back. But am I was I a refuge or just blind that I was another of those unwelcome men when some person is trying to just pay their rent anymore? A witness of my record, 3 in a day. But which of those 3 is a life tired, to temper hard to soft, mean to kind? But always open pursed to me? Friends, there are shadows in any case. Even if the morass of the faceless are not looking into that case for an objett they’ve never heard of and will never remember. One cannot hide beneath head’s hair. I awoke from my nightmares with an erection, penetrated the sleeping Claire, went limp, and fell asleep again. (Peter Handke) ...............................
http://www.thewhitereview.org/fiction/mueum/

Aletta Ocean Empire published in Osmics by Annexe press

Yet another wonderful and innovative publication from Annexe press and Nick Murray. A thing called the Pheromone Party (where people are asked to sleep in a shirt for a week, then bag it, and then given to others attending the night to sniff, blindly, and then choose who they'd like to meet based on the smell - a dating thing I think) commissioned Annexe to produce two zines for the events, as souvenirs, or things for people to read, I assume, if it all gets a little bit awkward. I was delighted to be asked, having a predilection for the olfactory, having done commissions for Lush before etc...I wrote poems called Aletta Ocean Empire (if you don't know who Aletta Ocean is then don't bother looking her up) which were accompanied by an inkblot that looks like the thing the poems are about, and then split into two, and the two lost halves published in the different zines. I have reunited them above, folding the separate zines together for a reunion. 
WWW.ANNEXEMAGAZINE.COM


the Hidden Door festival

Another very special time in Edinburgh. The Hidden door festival was an extraordinary undertaking, clear from the outset that it was entirely community based, built on people's sweat. Yet unlike so many things that emerge from this kind of DIY spirit, it was amazingly put together - well organised, beautiful to look at with some fantastic artwork, performances and installations, and vitally, it provided remarkable audiences. Both the walking tour and camarade event were concepts, imported in, that I had no way of controlling in that environment, so I had no idea how it would play out: it couldn't have fitted better. The poets were uniformly excellent, a wide range of tonalities and poetries on display, with a lean towards the energetic and intense, and funny, and the atmosphere was welcoming and as communal as the festival itself. For me it was lovely to idealise a city I don't live in, and need not experience the downside of, through the hospitality of the unusually innovative and original poets who inhabit it. So good to see old friends amidst making new ones, and for an event this like, a little bit special for all who witnessed and were part of it.
Colin Herd & Iain Morrison https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yENlEGqBvW4
Graeme Smith & Anthony Autumn https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x178S_I8mS8
Daisy Lafarge & Anne Laure Coxam https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKJRX-hTeXQ
JL Williams & MacGillivray https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmlcIs2I344
Greg Thomas & Lila Matsumoto https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7J2491JF-0
Ryan Van Winkle & Sarah Kelly https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNI5bAl5R-8
nick-e melville & Ross Sutherland https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3shpmr-hCKA

& the Walking tour in the vaults themselves.