Trepidation commended for the Forward Prize 2014

I'm pleased to say my poem Trepidation, which featured in my latest collection, the Rottweiler's Guide to the Dog Owner, has been highly commended by the Forward Prize. It means it'll feature in the anthology the prize puts out to celebrate it's awards later in the year. I wrote the poem as a set of ten on two days in Berlin for a performance with Alessandro Eramo, sat with WS Graham in a bedsit in Wedding, in a snowing February in 2013. I've never once thought back on that poem as being in anyway exceptional, for it to be singled out is pleasing as it surprises me to reread it and see what people might see when viewing it in isolation. A random thing, but good to have recognition for the thing within the thing. http://www.eyewearpublishing.com/products-page/books/s-j-fowler/

Poetry in Collaboration exhibition at the Poetry Library closes

The brilliant photographer Alexander Kell joined me as I visited the Poetry in Collaboration exhibited I've curated over the last two months at the Saison Poetry Library with Chris McCabe just before it closes. Im very proud of the exhibition, its carefully chosen, beautifully presented and easy on the eye. Its been a pleasure working with Chris too, and to have had so many people see the work is a wonderful thing, it's the premiere place to have a show like this in London. Hopefully not the last time Ill get to work with the library and its amazing collection.

Petrarch: a celebration of Tim Atkins, the videos

A magical evening, one of the best Ive been a part of, ever. It could not have been more joyous, funny, brilliant. It felt like a family, let alone a real community. All because of the human being Tim is, the way he has taught a generation of poets and peers to cut through the misanthropy to the warmth that permeates through his poetry and his persona. So proud to have been part of this evening, all 19 poets read so wonderfully, all worth watching. 
Chris Gutkind https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fkryQdk42E

Modernist mashup at the BAMS modernism now conference reading

The BAMS modernism now conference was the kind of thing I shouldve attended, and maybe contributed too, but didnt, as I find myself finding it difficult to do actual academic study at this point, with so much creative opportunity abounding. Fortunately JT Welsch offered me the chance to share some work with the people of the conference via a reading, a simple reading. The idea was to contextualise contemporary practise, my writing, in the modernist tradition, how it fed my poetry etc...So I took poems from seven modernists and mashed fragments of their work up with my own. I pretty much lifted my Enthusiasm poems from these writers anyway, so their close sitting makes sense.

P.O.W. poetry poster art celebration reading

Held at the Juggler in Hoxton, supported by the Bookart Bookshop and curated by the lovely Sophie Herxheimer, this was a really intimate, warm and enjoyable reading, a celebration of the brilliant work of Antonio Claudio Carvalho and this unique concrete poetry series that he has published. Good to meet some really brilliant poets too, like Robert Vas Dias and Victoria Bean. & I got to read with Chris McCabe, with some heavy male bond swaying. 


Glitter is a Gender anthology

An anthology that is lean, powerful and full of brilliant poets and poetry, Sophie Mayer and Sarah Crewe have put together this lovely book from Contraband press with great care and skill. I thoroughly recommend it and Im really happy to be a part of it.
My poem in the book is called Muyock
 a poem for Tiphaine Mancaux

if you weep, I think that
others might cry
                Larry Eigner

i.             danslenorddelafrance

rejoice, y th’ living
 ababy
      on m knees
           theearth bere
 ft breaks
       intodryred      mud
        heavy w birds         & gherman picks
sorriy id mean a lovtap  bt the avantage tend
      to be blunt is u neverve to worriy i she’s concealing
   for you    for shed say    if she did
     at th momenthr was wonder
  bt she is muscld like litl rok                  ifever th ws retroactive resistant
                              so said the mdwif   ‘J'espère que je ne vous ai pas dérangé’
with the RIB DIG
  the haus o de maus  flexes i nous

Performing at the Science Museum

I took Josh Alexander, the filmmaker, my friend, along to this strange evening at the Science Museum. He and I are going to make a film/poem together. He is quite brilliant, and wonderful company, very dry, very gentle mannered. We were kindly invited by the equally wonderful Sophie Mayer, as I am part of her anthology (ed with Sarah Crewe) called Glitter as a gender, which was being celebrated as part of a Late Night opening at the museum, about sex. I performed in front of the amazing Exponential Horn installation. A massive 30 foot amplification horn. In a dark room. It was an atmosphere of speed dating and champers in the museum, and I went on at 7, so the people were in and out, of staying and going, and of listening. I wore a Plague Doctor mask and a hoodie. I mumbled some weird stuff about speed dating in between humming like Glenn Gould. I got told off for shouting into the horn. No one really listened to me. All the better, perhaps, as Josh filmed me, they seemed not to know I was performing, and slouched, undefended as I went on. Josh and I both work in a museum. The event briefing we had to attend early on, with its false happiness and energy and air of strange bovine threat lingered in the strange ursine nature of my performance. This will be a night that gives something for the film, but weird to live in. Nice to be asked though.

Syndrome season 2 for Mercy in Liverpool this August

Syndrome Season 2http://www.mercyonline.co.uk/who-we-are/what-we-are-up-to/article/syndrome-season-2 yeaaa, Im up for this going to Liverpool for a near week residency with the brand new amazing project from Mercy that is Syndrome going deeper in the realms of control under the watchful eagle eyes of Nathan Jones wherell Ill get to work with radical technologists and ideas people Jamie Gledhill  and Stefan Kazassoglouan who will help my create interactive space that responds visually and sonically to physical presence and movement in a similar way that a musical instrument responds to being played with, but in this case the instrument is my body, through the martial arts, voice and breath performance. Very good very good.

Translation Games workshop for TCCE conference

I had a really fun afternoon at the TCCE conference in the swanky Guildhall building next to the Barbican doing a seminar with the brilliant Ricarda Vidal for the Translation games project http://translationgames.net/?page_id=346 (click the link to see loads of great pictures of the day and the work that was written)

 I was a wee bit ill and wonky, though that tends to make me more relaxed and so far more palatable, but the whole of the day seemed so positive and open that it always seemed like itd be a success. This conference is for creative professionals to share ideas, to try new projects, to network, in the best way, and we had a nice group that Ricarda led through the concepts around cross medium translation before they actually had a go at rendering Anna Cady's film back into the poetry from whence it came. I was really positively surprised with the openness of the participants and thought Ricarda did an amazing job. Such a lovely thing to continue my work with Translation Games, long may that grow.

Phonodia - my profile at the University of Venice poetry project

I am really honoured to now have a profile up on the Phonodia project, curated by the amazing Alessandro Mistrorigo and housed at the University of Venice. http://phonodia.unive.it/people/sj-fowler/

This brilliant project brings together a wide array of poets from around the world with beautifully rendered sound recordings of them reading their works alongside the texts.

You can see from the site just how many really great poets are featured, and I got to do these recordings when visiting Venice for the Crossing Voices project earlier in the year. Another wonderful by product of that amazing project, if you click on my profile, you can hear a variety of my work from across from different books. 

Anglaise Actuelle #2 - Geraldine Monk

The second of my series of avant garde British poets newly turned over into French http://recoursaupoeme.fr/ is now up! Anglaise Actuelle began with Allen Fisher and now has Geraldine Monk in its hopefully future hallowed halls. Another wonderful job by Marilyne Bertonici, the series, by its very nature, is demanding of her. Wonderful to have the powerful, singular voice of Geraldine as part of this project, she has been a clear and brilliant voice in British poetry over the last many decades, and things are better off for her having been there
http://recoursaupoeme.fr/geraldine-monk/escafeld-hangings

Auld Enemies: July 9th - 26th

7 locales : over 40 poets : a national tour of Scotland
​& brand new innovative poetic collaborations : a Scottish Enemies project http://weareenemies.com/auldenemies.html

The Enemies project: Auld Enemies is a transnational poetry collaboration where six poets will work in rolling pairs to produce original works for readings across the breadth of Scotland. Each event will also feature numerous pairs of writers from the region, who will be presenting brand new poetry collaborations as well. Auld Enemies is a groundbreaking exploration of contemporary Scottish poetics through the potential of collaboration.
​​​
Auld Enemies will commence with a six date tour of Scotland, taking in Dundee, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Lerwick in the Shetlands and finishing with Kirkwall in the Orkneys. It will conclude with an event in London, at the Rich Mix Arts Centre, on July 26th, which will feature many of the new works from the tour, new collaborations and a documentary screening about Auld Enemies.

 Auld Enemies is fundamentally about the creation of new collaborative works and the integration of differing poetic communities​, and has only been possible through the generosity of a series of organisational partners, first and foremost Creative Scotland, but also the Scottish Poetry Library, Literary Dundee, Summerhall, Shetland Arts, the Orkney Islands Council and Northlink Ferries.

 Please find below the schedule and the poet's involved, and if possible, do spread the word, and attend all and any of the events you can:

July 9th - Dundee - 6pm
​Duncan of Jordanstone (studio & foyer space) University Of Dundee, Perth Rd, Dundee DD1 4HT (with thanks to Peggy Hughes)

 Billy Letford & nick-e melville / Ryan Van Winkle & SJ Fowler / Colin Herd & Ross Sutherland
plus AZ Jackson & Lindsay MacGregor / James Stewart & Dawn Wood / Richard Watt & more
July 10th – Glasgow - 8pm
​McChulls 40 High Street (http://mcchuills.co.uk/) (with thanks to Henry Bell)

 Ross Sutherland & Ryan Van Winkle / Billy Letford & Colin Herd / nick-e melville & SJ Fowler
plus ​Thomas Betteridge & Neil Davidson / Katy Hastie, Antony Autumn, Iyad Hayatleh & more
July 11th - Edinburgh - 7pm
​Summerhall -- Demonstration Room. 1 Summerhall EH9 1PL
​ http://www.summerhall.co.uk/ (with thanks to Jen White)

 Colin Herd & Iain Morrison / Billy Letford & Ryan Van Winkle / SJ Fowler & Ross Sutherland
​nick-e melville & Jane Goldman / Dave Coates & Rachel McCrum / JL Williams & Elspeth Smith / Luke Allan & Graeme Smith / Karen Veitch & Mike Saunders / Ed Smith & Thomas MacColl / Rob McKenzie & more
July 12th - Aberdeen 7pm
Cellar 35, 35 Rosemount Viaduct (http://www.list.co.uk/place/21626-cellar-35/ (with thanks to Gerard Rochford & Richie Brown)​

 Billy Letford & SJ Fowler / Ryan Van Winkle & Colin Herd / Ross Sutherland & nicke melville
Gerard Rochford & Richie Brown / Maureen Ross & more
July 14th – Lerwick, The Shetland Islands- 7pm
At the http://www.mareel.org/ arts centre. ZE1 0WQ (with thanks to Donald Anderson)

 Ross Sutherland & nick-e melville / Colin Herd & SJ Fowler / Ryan Van Winkle
Nat Hall & James Sinclair / Donald Murray /  Laurajayne Friedlander & more
July 17th - Kirkwall, The Orkney Islands - 7pm
​Kirkwall Library -- 44 Junction Rd, Highlands and Islands, Kirkwall KW15 1AG -- https://www.facebook.com/orkneylibraryandarchive) (with thanks to Pam Beasant)

 Ross Sutherland & SJ Fowler / Colin Herd & nick-e melville
Rosemary Merriman, Sylvia Hays, Rosie Alexander, Lydia Harris & more
July 26th - London - 7pm
​​
Ross Sutherland / nick-e melville / Colin Herd / Ryan Van Winkle / SJ Fowler
Emily Berry & John Clegg / Tom Chivers & Roddy Lumsden
Nick Murray & Eley Williams / Vahni Capildeo & Jeremy Noel-Tod
​Kirsty Irving & Harry Man / Daisy Lafarge & more​​​​

My performance at the Museum of Water, Somerset House, for Penned in the Margins

a new performance, on commission for the Museum of Water at Somerset House, my piece was about the introduction of water cannons to the repertoire of British police, to be used against protestors, in a typically heinous and bizarre decision by Boris Johnson. With sounds, and a slowed video of a protestor in gezi park getting smashed by a water cannon, i read a new text while intermittedly holding my breath to the point of pain in a bowl of water. The message is clear, I hope. I made a mess. Deep fun was had. It was an intimate room and again, no idea how it went down. The others works on the day were really interesting too, got to see Alison Gibb, JR Carpenter, Ruth Padel amongst them, a fine curatorial job by Tom Chivers and Nick Murray of Penned in the Margins. http://www.museumofwater.co.uk/

Reading at the midsummer poetry festival in Sheffield

A beautiful long day in Sheffield, first the symposium on anthologies, curated by Agnes Lehoczky, and featuring some old friends and some new ones, then a reading. Good to see JT Welsch, Kate Kililea, Alan Halsey, Geraldine Monk, Nathan Hamilton amongst some people I'd never seen speak before, Adam Piette, Angelina Ayers, and some really interesting papers. A huge privilege to finally meet Kaarina Hollo too, who I've corresponded with since her father's death. By coincidence I also managed to squeeze in dinner with Nathan Jones, who happened to be in Sheffield. It was a city quietened, the first hot day of the year, leafy, peaceful, and after my reading I managed to catch up with my old friend and collaborator, the artist Sian Williams, who had moved the city from London recently and left me feeling I had seen things from just inside. Happy to share a width of my work at the reading too, making me realise how much Ive managed to put out there, and to finish reading my poem dedicated to Anselm Hollo in front of his daughter.

Kristiina Ehin - Walker on Water

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

Museum of Water at Somerset House - June 21st

So pumped for this, I will be reading a new poem while intermittently trying to drown myself. What a lineup too. http://www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk/index.php/2014/02/museum-of-water/
As part Amy Sharrock’s extraordinary Museum of Water at Somerset House, Penned in the Margins curates a packed programme of water-themed poetry and performance. Join us in the spoken word room from midday for nautical field recordings, durational water performances, and poems inspired by rivers, estuaries, sewers and the sea. A detailed schedule will be announced soon.
JR Carpenter re-sounds the islands, flying jellyfish drones and nautical field recordings of her underwater digital project Etheric Ocean in a live poly-vocal performance with poet Alison Gibb.
Faber New Poet Jack Underwood and sound poet Holly Pester collaborate on a one-off durational performance: a poem for two voices about the water we share and the water between us
Award-winning writer Ruth Padel reads estuarine poetry from her collections The Mara Crossing, The Soho Leopard and Fusewire
Claire Trevien composes poems live in response to the exhibition and reads from her book The Shipwrecked House, inspired by the sea and her Breton maritime heritage
Canal Laureate and narrow-boat dweller Jo Bell reads poetry informed by living on water
SJ Fowler rails against the Water Cannon with an original poem in between self-drowning sctivities
Siddhartha Bose reads poetry inspired by the holy rivers of the Thames and the Ganges
Justin Hopper explores sea disasters in the Thames estuary and follows hidden currents of Pittsburgh in his poem-projects Public Record and Fourth River: Ley Line
Tom Chivers reads from Flood Drain – his psychogeographical poem about the river Hull – and shares his experiences of leading ‘urban pilgrimages’ along London’s lost rivers
Early medieval scholars and postgraduates from King’s College London and elsewhere read poems drawn from the Old Water Hoard of Anglo-Saxon poems about water

Schedule

12:30 Claire Trevien
13:00 Jo Bell
13:30 Siddhartha Bose
14:00 Old English Sound Hoard
14:30 Justin Hopper
15:00 Jack Underwood & Holly Pester
15:30 Tom Chivers
16:00 SJ Fowler
16:15 Ruth Padel
16:45 Etheric Ocean by JR Carpenter
17:15 Claire Trevien

The Midsummer Poetry festival in Sheffield

Really pleased to be in the company of so many good poets and I get the chance to speak about Maintenant / Enemies, and really how they are strategies to avoid anthologising in the formal sense!, before I then read as part of an event celebrating the dear world anthology. An epic lineup, and a chance to visit Sheffield, all power to Agnes Lehoczky http://www.midsummerpoetryfestival.co.uk/symposium/ 
Steven Fowler, ‘Anthology: The Form of the Innovative’ SJ Fowler discusses his projects, the Maintenant series, 100 interviews with contemporary European poets, and the Enemies project, exploring innovative poetry and collaboration, as forms of non-traditional anthologising practise. http://www.midsummerpoetryfestival.co.uk/events/dear-world-everyone-in-it/

Chinese avant garde poetry at the Poetry Cafe - June 18th

Really honoured that Ill be reading the English translations of Jiang Tao's work at the Poetry Cafe. Come along to this free event, and get a small insight into contemporary experimental Chinese poetry. http://www.poetrysociety.org.uk/events/event/2696/

Jiang

One Hundred Years of New Poetry in China

Visiting poets from China will read their poems and discuss their work. Featuring Jiang Tao and Ming Di.
Organised in association with Oxford Brookes University, it will be introduced by Jennifer Wong, a first year PhD student at Oxford Brookes University, studying contemporary Asian diaspora poetry and the power of ethnicity. S J Fowler will read from Jiang Tao's work and Jennifer Wong will also read some of her poetry.