Day of the Deaded - the videos

The day of the deaded reading took place at the rich mix and was really an attempt to mark that date as special, considering how the Enemigos project took me to Mexico city last year and to offer a small addition to the rich mix's weekend of interesting events. It was a difficult reading to curate with the mass of events recently, Camaradefest not least amongst them, but the seven performances were generously given, very intense and very much representative of a British understanding of death, perhaps against the Mexican. I was a little out of energy but managed, thanks to the extraordinary Amalie Russell, artist and Hardy Tree curator, to represent the Mexico skeleton to full effect. 
Tom Chivers
Mercedes Azpilicueta & Ohad Ben Shimon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kklJhkLWCCg

Zimzalla exhibition closing readings

This was a really wonderful evening in the Hardy Tree gallery, just a few days after the mass of the Camaradefest, this was an intimate way to unwind and share work with many who had travelled to London for the fest. Also a proper way to say goodbye to the brilliant but brief Zimzalla exhibition, which Tom Jenks has put a lot into and the Enemies project is proud to represent.
Zuzana Husarova & Olga Pek (Tryie collective) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5B4JvHiwg54
Kim Campanello https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-yjF49erKI
Lucy Harvest Clarke https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CX1nsbQFQ04
Iain Morrison https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQTX6CKWTgI
Ryan Van Winkle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UouHrENNFFw
Tom Jenks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzZwQkgcwPk
Christodoulos Makris https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s09hcNNSDq8

2 new poems up on the new issue of Cordite from Australia

http://cordite.org.au/ Really happy to be in Cordite for a second issue running. This one is edited by Corey Wakeling and is themed on constraints. Some incredible poets in the issue, Emily Critchley, John Wilkinson et al, and as ever with Cordite, its a sprawling, ambitious engagement with the theme.

 You can read Corey's intro here http://cordite.org.au/essays/constraint-editorial/

 My poem Split here http://cordite.org.au/poetry/constraint/split/
My poem No limit to the resources http://cordite.org.au/poetry/constraint/no-limit-to-the-resources/




new Veer books website

http://www.veerbooks.com/ Delighted to see a beautiful new website for Veer books, who generously published my collection Fights in 2011 http://www.veerbooks.com/filter/veer-books/Steven-J-Fowler-fights & edited by a collective of extraordinary poets, have put together one of the most important lists in 21st century poetry, including poets from around the world. I sincerely recommend you checking them out and buying their wares.
Plus there is a sale! 

Enemigos - Day of the Deaded - London Bookfair

Day of the Deaded
Rich Mix Arts Centre : Friday October 31st : 8pm : Venue 2
 
Come & spend your Day of the Dead, October Friday 31st, with the Enemies project at the Rich Mix Arts Centre, for a night of Día de Muertos in London. Featuring original performances and poetry from Mark Waldron, Tom Chivers, David Berridge, Ohad Ben Simon, Mercedes Azpilicueta, Mary Paterson & more, this unique evening is part of Enemigos: the enemies project Mexico and a rare chance to gather your friends to remember the dead in the most imaginative of ways. http://weareenemies.com/dayofthedeaded.html
 
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The second phase of Enemigos: the Enemies project in Mexico recently took place at Hay Xalapa, the Cervantino festival in Guanajuato and Mexico City. An extraordinary series of events in Mexico held over a few weeks, it was topped by the release of the long awaited Enemigos anthology.
 
My reading from the Hay festival in Mexico is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NLrM5SygAM and my six blogs from the intense and eventful fortnight are here:
http://blutkitt.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/mexico-diario-de-la-poesia-1-hay-xalapa.html
http://blutkitt.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/mexico-diario-de-la-poesia-2-hay-xalapa.html
http://blutkitt.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/mexico-diario-de-la-poesia-3-hay-xalapa.html
http://blutkitt.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/mexico-diario-de-la-poesia-4-hay-xalapa.html
http://blutkitt.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/mexico-diario-de-la-poesia-5-moctezumas.html
http://blutkitt.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/mexico-diario-de-la-poesia-6-enemigos.html
 
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The Enemigos anthology is a groundbreaking anthology of cross-national, cross-lingual radical translation, where 8 poets from Mexico City exchanged texts, and deliberately experimental translations, with 8 poets from London and vice versa. The result is a unique anthology of collaborative poetry that explores the outer realms of translation and has connected two communities of poets across continents. It features the work of Tom Raworth & Roldolfo Mata, Carol Watts & Enzia Verduchi, Rocio Ceron & Holly Pester, David Berridge & Alberto Blanco, Tom Chivers & Ana Franco Ortuno, Gaspar Orozco & Tim Atkins, Jeff Hilson & Pura Lopez Colome, and myself & Amanda de la Garza. It is published by EBL Cielo Abierto, and will be available in the UK April 2015. https://es-es.facebook.com/EblCieloAbierto
 
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Enemigos will continue on into 2015, beginning with a major event to mark the first night of the London Bookfair, where Mexico is the nation of honour. On April 14th, at the Rich Mix Arts Centre, a series of visiting Mexican writers and poets will present work with British counterparts, and the Enemigos anthology will see its UK launch. www.weareenemies.com

updates on the Enemies project website : www.weareenemies.com

Recently added is a revamped About section detailing future plans and past happenings, an updated 2014 schedule with event information and videos and the beginnings of the 2015 schedule.
http://weareenemies.com/about.html 
http://weareenemies.com/events_14.html 
- an example from the about below

The future
As the Enemies project moves into 2015 there are five key points of its future program:

​​​​Innovative event curation: trying to genuinely break new ground in the form and structure of events and exhibitions and programmes between poets and artists. Events include the Kiddy Kamarade, a family poetry day including a creche and children’s pedagogical poetry activities, a collaborative residency with an award winning and innovative landscape architecture form to explore how language can shape the very literal but endlessly complex physical shaping of urban environments and new forms of collaborative poetry readings with established partners like the Hay-on-Wye festival.

Innovative collaborative connections between mediums: marrying poetry with sculpture, with England’s folk music tradition, with sound art and avant garde music, with film and film language, with animation. The new year of Enemies seeks new ground to break across artforms.

a continued increase in our International outlook: an emphasis on bringing other cultures and languages to collaborate in England, and to explore the possibilities of translation as a practise, and what this means to language but also to different artforms, to whom the word is not so familiar and provides unique challenges. Wales, Austria, Norway, Germany, Finland, Mexico and many others are on the slate.

Radical translation: a long term partnership with the Translation Games project, curated by Ricarda Vidal, following on from back to back appearances at the British Library's International Translation Day, situates Enemies at the forefront of experimental translation practise, and events and anthologies will further this pursuit in 2015.​​

Co-curating collaboration: setting up events that are built on a collaborative partnership in the curating of those events, and exploring how that mediation of exchange in the actual programming of artistic exchange affects, and enriches that practise. The Enemies website will evidence and discuss this process with a series of co-curators for the many projects lined up throughout the year, through video interviews and blogposts and interviews.

Collectives: exploring the notion of collective collaboration and how it differs from binary collaboration, and how it inherently bleeds across mediums in an organic and social manner. Through three recently established and contrasting collectives, involving some of most exciting names in contemporary art writing, performance art, poetry, visual art and electronic literature, the Enemies project will explore whether the Collective is a mode of collaboration still relevant to the 21st century.

Oxford Brookes weekly poem feature - Gilles de Rais from Enemies

http://www.brookes.ac.uk/poetry-centre/weekly-poem/weekly-poem-for-20-october-2014/ Very nice to have two poems from my collaboration with David Erkembode Kelly pop up on the Oxford Brookes poetry weekly poetry feature.  
Weekly Poem for 20 October 2014

  • from Gilles de Rais

    shot in the ribs in revenge.
    my organs like this, two ribs, rhymes 
    and emily’s 
    racist baby workout 
    is a future collected book 
    like this a postcard sized box that is completely 
    empty as a hospital bed 
    can be empty soon 
    enough if you don’t watch you mouth & if so 
    I’ll be on quick as a flash 
    evidence for it in my past
    by SJ Fowler

    This excerpt from ‘Gilles de Rais’ is copyright © SJ Fowler, 2013. It is reprinted by permission of Penned in the Margins from Enemies  (Penned in the Margins, 2013).
    Notes from Penned in the Margins: ‘Gilles de Rais’ is a collaborative work with poems by SJ Fowler and artwork from David Kelly, and comes from the anthology, Enemies. This ground-breaking, multi-disciplinary collection is the result of collaborations between SJ Fowler and 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 museum. Find out more from the Penned in the Margins website, watch SJ Fowler read from the poem, and follow his work on his website and on Twitter.
    Penned in the Margins is an independent publisher and live literature producer specialising in poetry and based in East London. Founded in 2004, the company has produced numerous literature and performance events, toured several successful live literature shows, published over twenty-five books, and continues to run innovative poetry, arts and performance projects in the capital and beyond. The company is currently touring two productions: Shlock!, a powerful feminist satire for the cut and paste generation, and The Shipwrecked House, a one-woman performance that blends poetry with theatre, in which Anglo-Breton poet Claire Trévien navigates a shifting maritime landscape. You can find out more about these productions on the Penned in the Margins website. 

Zimzalla exhibition launch readings

http://weareenemies.com/zimzallaexhibition.html So pleased to kick off this 4th exhibition the Enemies project has done with the Hardy Tree gallery with such a wonderful evening of readings in Kings Cross. It felt like a catch up with old friends, and the ZimZalla objects, all 25 of them, look really beautiful in the space. Tom Jenks, the mastermind behind ZimZalla seemed pleased with it, and thats all that matters to me, along with the little bit more attention his publishing venture deserves. 
Tom Watts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAZfWSGE88k
Leanne Bridgewater https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1qHPfLvcng
MJ Weller https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwSI1hplSr8
Stephen Emmerson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUvVJdqHRy4
Andy Spragg  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9g4hbIXvCQ

Mexico : diario de la poesía #6 - Enemigos & the shadow of the Mexica

Aside from the practicalities of seeing the cities of Xalapa and Guanajuato, if there is one profound difference to this visit to Mexico, as compared with the weeks spent here in Mexico City last year, it is a sense that the paradox of the country has somehow been more in evidence. A circle of perception about the place has been completed. This is all in my perception of course, by its nature, incredibly limited and narrow in its vision, but last year was an opening up, a realisation that this is a place defined by things I couldn't have realised without experience. The hospitality, the energy, the physical vibrancy of Mexico. This year then is the closing of that bracket. What fuels that energy? I have no idea, but it is still a place where in Iguana, just an hour or so from Mexico City, a student was skinned and left on the street as a message to not be visible. They removed his face, what is the symbolism of that? He was protesting what he saw as unfair new tests for teachers, ones that precluded people who spoke indigenous languages and didn't favour Spanish or English. He and his 50 or so compatriots, student teachers, were not out against the narcos. Protests have erupted across the country, near the anniversary of 68 student repressions. This has come up in every conversation I have had here since it happened. Poets, academics, students, children; they tell me they are scared to travel, to be kidnapped. A nation where people smile at me on the street, shelter me without asking during a rainstorm, laugh off my lack of Spanish, give me gifts, buy me food, take me into their homes, offer to translate me, collaborate, lead me to transport, carry my bag. An obvious contradiction? A paradoxical place to such an extent it is a cliche. I have spent two weeks here, and being so sick right of the heart of that stay, losing my normal physical confidence, this has got into my breath. It has been a different experience, not bad, not at all. It has been magnificient. But not easy either. Not casual and light. 

 I said farewell to Nell and Bee and the others who made up the official part of my trip, having chosen to stay on an extra series of days and see those I met last year and moved into a new, smaller, more ordinary hotel in Roma, a more youthful neighborhood. No one helping me now, strange to get used to cars picking you up and people shepherding you to events. I had more time to write and rest, still a bit weak. The first day 'alone' I did three readings and must have met a hundred new friends. 
First we read in the Condessa, launching the beautifully produced Enemigos anthology, what began my ties with Mexico in the first place really. We had 8 poets from London and 8 from Mexico City butcher each others works with the radical translations at the heart of the collection. To see it in print was very gratifying. I saw Ari Chavez Chacon again, who helped me so much in 2013, a brilliant artist herself and a friend, and Jack Little, the Newcastle born poet who has lived here for 4 years, and who runs the Ofi press. 

 After a long lunch where I really got to talk with the wonderful Amanda de la Garza and Rodolfo Matas, and Ana Franco Ortuna, we headed to the Casa del Lago, an amazing and much lauded poetry venue right on the lake of the Chapultepec park, in the heart of the city. Apparently this ornate lakehouse had housed everyone from Paz onwards, and we set up as a panel to read from and talk about Enemigos. I met Gaspar Orozco here too, diplomat and poet and punk singer, not something I'd think possible in England. The audience was made up of families, a photography class and well wishers. I found it enjoyable, still full of cold, to be rather light hearted with the discussions, but reading the work of my dear friend Tom Raworth I felt quite sad he wasn't with me in the city he resided in during the 70s. We finished the day in a mescal bar, the Mexican hospitality raging as a thunderstorm wracked the city. 

 I spent much of the next few days simply exploring the city, walking for many hours at a time, intermittently meeting friends like Jack, Ari and Rocio Ceron, and others, and getting to know Roma and la Condessa. It's been a long time since I've had days almost alone, unbusied. All things require adjustment. I spent the last day, the day I write this on, mostly in the anthropological museum. Famed for its grandiose architecture and epic displays, I spent the better part of 5 hours wandering the halls. But again the shadow came back. It was too intense, I became almost entranced, a bit sick even. I had to read every panel almost, to satisfy myself. I didn't take a single picture. There is a richness to the rendering, the animals, the faces of death, to the dwarfed gurning humans, to the very process and intent of the artwork of the indigenous civilisations of Mexico that is like the sensation I had experienced when being unable to escape the potential of the worst suffering and fear and occlusion that this country can produce. It is something of an intoxicant, and for now, just for now, I am okay with going home to London,

Mexico : diario de la poesía #5 - Moctezuma's revenge & the Cervantino festival in Guanajuato

Into a muddy hole disappeared two or three days of my life in Mexico City. Travelling from Xalapa, I felt unsteady, but not concerned. The drive back into the megapolis was a chance to watch the country pass. Once installed into the Fiesta Americana - a massive, 25 floor corporate hotel sat right on the Reforma, the kitsch boulevard that centres Mexico City, once bullied into lifts with portly groups of men with greased back hair and far less gentle manners, once I'd eaten from the rich and seemingly endless buffet, the nausea and stomach ache turned into something else. 

 I've been very ill travelling before. It's always a lonelying experience. You are a long way away from those you love, as you are sensorially, from comfort. It is a mental game. In the end I had trouble walking, it not just being projectile but with cramps, migraines and so on, and before we were to leave for Guanajuato, they had to have a doctor visit me. I was faced with a difficult decision as to whether to attend or not, but with such ripe disdain for that hotel room, that plush open room that sat on the 17th floor and took in most of Mexico City, that I hated, I went. Much is owed in easing my own will to those around me, the writers Nell Leyshon (who kindly ((!)) took this photo of me as the doctor visited) and Bee Rowlatt, the British Council staff, the organisers of the Cervantino and those back home who relentlessly insisted on getting me better when I wanted to crawl into a corner.

 A five hour car journey then, still ill, but corked, listening to Veracruzian music sent me by new friends in Xalapa just gone. Into Guanajuato, an impossibly beautiful place. But I was blind to it, and hid again for another lost day, trying to get past the nausea. Student protests raged outside my room, hundreds, like thousands across Mexico, protesting the horrific torture and murder of a group of protesting students in Iguana. The brilliant Ioan Grillo wrote this article on the awfulness of what happened http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/10/opinion/mexicos-deadly-narco-politics.html?_r=0

 I woke up better yet, and being able to know the date, and the place. I walked around Guanajuato, also being to eat more than a bite for the first time in days. The city is unbelievable, every corner a scene in a film, every street a picture. Every colour on the buildings, rising up on hills and littered with parks and markets and small alleys, and tunnels. The city is build on tunnels that bore through the hillside, genuinely subterranean streets that hold bus stops and pedestrian walkways see cars pour through and pop out in brilliant sunshine. I talked with people again, bought things, felt like a person once more.
My nurses and friends and buoys, Nell Leyshon and Bee Rowlatt, and I, then attended our event, at the University, for the grand Cervantino festival. This is the 42nd year and the festival goes on for three weeks. That we were staying just a day seemed incongruous. We were self panelling on Shakespeare, and it turned out marvelous I thought. We all come from different backgrounds, different professions, different modes of thought. And it complimented. I stressed the need to interrogate the value of Shakespeare, pedagogically, to make sure the relationship was personal and not assumed, earned and not because the value of his works were so overbearingly lauded. I also talked about his role in the future, which was the theme, being the same as it was in the past, really, but that there were immense things to be taken from his prolific nature etc etc.. It went well and the students were positive. 
More time allowed me to visit Diego Rivera's house and the old market, before we bundled into a van for a brutal 6 hour crawl back south across Mexico into Mexico city once again. I was well and truly well then, for if I hadn't have been, I would've capitulated. Instead Nell and I shared the backseat and confused the Mexican car with conversation.

Issue #3 of Anglaise Actuelle on Recours au Poeme = James Byrne

http://www.recoursaupoeme.fr/essais/un-regard-sur-la-po%C3%A9sie-anglaise-actuelle-3/marilyne-bertoncini Delighted to see the third of this translation series I edit up online with Recours au Poeme. This time the brilliant James Byrne.

L'Un/L'Autre
L'un soupire profondément au téléphone
L'autre verse les sables mouvants de l'assassin
L'un quitte la garnison seul comme une balle
L'autre emplit les tubes blancs de kérosène
L'un est observé de la vitre en frontière
Un autre défend de la noirceur des arbres
L'un trinque avec l'ennemi
Un autre imagine la mort sur une route migratoire
L'un s'acharne sur celui qui est  assis au piano
Un autre s'abrite à l'ombre d'un figuier
- See more at: http://www.recoursaupoeme.fr/essais/un-regard-sur-la-po%C3%A9sie-anglaise-actuelle-3/marilyne-bertoncini#sthash.ZF6LJp7T.dpuf

Mexico : diario de la poesía #4 - Hay Xalapa ends

The time compression and expansion that occurs when so much is going on, so many conversations are being had, effects the ability to realise it is about to end, that it only lasts a very finite number of days. This last day was as wonderful as the rest, but tinged with the sadness of it ending. The experiences have not just been engaged and intense, but also rich, very subtle at times, the connections between people that happen when so many are brought together with varying interests of a similar outlook. 

We began by seeing Tom Bunstead chair a talk between Adam Thirlwell and Hari Kunzru, and the open, conversation nature of their discussion fitted very much with the sunday morning feeling of Xalapa, gentle and laid back. We split from there, and I joined those in the discussion and Katie Kitamura, who shares my passion for Mixed Martial Arts, for a long lunch, being able to see more of the city centre and talk with novelists whose work I have followed for awhile. All very humble, funny, affable people. 

Returned to the hotel I talked more with the volunteers who really have been the backbone of the festivals daily vibrancy and friendliness. They are a massive cadre of students from Veracruz university, all with amazing humour and kindness, they tolerated my repeated attempts at making them laugh. I then went to what I thought a simple interview but turned out to be the beginning of what I am now sure will be a long friendship. One of the volunteers, Montserrath, and a photographer Citlalxochitl, took me to the oldest park in Xalapa, the botanical park. It was tropical, with enormous trees, and fenced in, in a valley, it seemed like a forgotten world. It was teeming with families and couples on the sunday, and there to have my picture taken I soon discovered Citlal was Nahuatl and the daughter of the wonderful poet Juan Hernandez Ramirez, who I had read alongside. We spent a long afternoon in the park, talking, through Montserrath mostly, Citlal and I not sharing a language, as she posed me from place to place, on bridges, playgrounds, with giant fish and turtles, and murals of animals. We bumped into friends of Citlal, who talked with us and I felt completely removed from my own world and for the first time, the day before I am to leave, completely inside of Xalapa. 

After a horrid gym session while carrying a cold, and another beautiful dinner of Mexican food, we attended the absolutely packed Concha Buika concert. The Mexicans went mad for her, and she was like nothing I've seen before. Half black Spanish Nina Simone, half scaling melodrama. Real moments of brilliance, others of excess for my British sensibilities. But it was immense as an experience, overpowering at times. I had to stand because my legs were cramping and bumped into Montserrath and we found Citlal, who was photographing the event, and we all sat on a balcony watching. Montserrath whispered translations to me as Concha Buika joked and spoke through her work. The concert ended and after hugging and saying thank you to a dozen or so volunteers, students and people who recognised me from my reading, I said goodbye to Citlal and Montserrath. They both had gifts for me, even after the amazing hospitality I had experienced. A book, and from Citlal, a handmade Nahuatl necklace. I felt like it was the last of a line of privileges I was profoundly aware I was lucky to be receiving. I said goodbye too to many friends I've made from England, America, Canada, Chile and the rest of the world and went back to my room to listen to Daniel Johnston and feel pleasantly sad.

Mexico : diario de la poesía #3 - Hay Xalapa continues

A day of remarkable discoveries, feeling more like a witness to worlds in worlds, now my participation in the festival itself is done. Still somewhat in space from the size and intensity of my reading the night before, still processing it, I joined some new friends to watch a wonderful panel on indigenous cultures in Canada and in Mexico. I had spoken in depth to the Canadian delegation through the week, the extraordinary work of Cheryl Suzack and Ingrid Bejerman, their activism and scholarship was worn very lightly, and hearing Juan Hernandez Ramirez of the Nahuatl too, was fascinating. This was a real meeting point between their concerns, and I spoke to them at length afterward, note taking throughout.

 Nell Leyshon and I then fulfilled our promise to our vehement hosts and were dropped off for one of the few times without a chaperone to visit the anthropological museum. It was breathtaking, and having worked in a museum for seven years that is a statement, for I have developed a deep suspicion about museum's and their function, my first book was about that really, and yet this place was more a park, an architectural project and a state of experience than a traditional museum. The ancient cultures of Mexico were not portrayed singularly, their entire culture, and its truly unfathomable artistic skill was expressed. I was left with an intense sense of their humour, and play, their families, their subtlety, and the embracing of mortality. It was too much after only minutes, I needed more time to try to understand the objects. Nell and I ate in the cafeteria there too, a simple one room cafe, where a lady cooked us homemade food in a tiny kitchen.

 We walked down from the museum, and thanks to Nell's intrepid nature and excellent Spanish, managed to visit the Panteon Xalapeno, the old cemetary of the city. Each grave was a complex in and of itself, a war of styles and colour, from the brilliantly tasteless to the architecturally avant garde. We were told families commission architects and construction workers to build these tombs and visit them so often they are like extensions of a home space. A privilege to witness, so removed as it was from a British cemetary.

 I needed a few hours to write, and to recover, and train, and managed to have a long and rolling conversation with the brilliant Forrest Gander, whose reputation for generosity is well deserved next to the high esteem he is held in as a poet, and in Mexico, as one of the very most important translators. He could not have been more decent and down to earth. I was soon out again after dinner to see Daniel Johnston in concert. I had watched the documentary about his life many years ago, and had listened to his music then, but his performance was so beautiful, so vulnerable and open, I wasn't expecting to be moved so much by it. It was almost wounding, and made me, for the first time physically, miss home and the people I love. His performance was very much like this one I found online.  After a brief trip to the hotel we all bundled off to a party thrown by the publisher Sexto Piso, who have a reputation for being very generous and very trendy. It was actually more of a celebration for the local people, the students really, who have volunteered the make the festival so amazing. It was good to see another side of the city again, not one I longed for, the hip nightlife, but fun none the less. I spoke to Forrest, the lovely Bee Rowlatt and Nell, and a lot of the young Mexicans, managing to get them to open up about their lives, and the effect the drug violence has had on their childhood. Their unrelenting warmth and friendliness seems to be in spite of the horror they have often witnessed, all of them had stories of hearing or witnessing terrible violence. Very humbled once again, and feeling very sober (the party had free tequila) I went home trying to quiet my mind.

Mexico : diario de la poesía #2 - Hay Xalapa

The intensity of a day filled with conversation accelerates time while maintaining recollection, or awareness of time passing, as the very opposite. So it feels like I’ve been in Xalapa a week, and yet the day passes so rapidly I have write it down to remember it.
The day began with media stuff, not exactly a commonplace feature of my life as an experimental poet barely known in England let alone elsewhere. Five interviews, everyone was conducted people who had deeply researched and engaged with my work, which I found absurd and exhilarating, and everyone then railed off then into wide discussions about the place of the human being behind literature, language and my lack of it, ethics, humour and other lofty things. Always Mexico, its openness, hospitality, the warmth of its people defined these conversations. A lot was said about generations in Mexico, shifting understanding in a young and powerful and troubled country, or so it would seem. They ended up very personal, close engagements, and lasted hours all in.
The hotel has an in house gym, all shiny and empty and mine, so I punished myself a wee bit before having a lunch with post gym lobster face clean sweats and meeting the remarkably humble, intelligent people who seem to populate every room I eat in, every bus I ride in. I was then ferried in Xalapa to watch a wonderful event that saw Nell Leyshon in conversation with Pura Lopez Colome. Another packed event, the beautiful contrast between Pura’s academic erudition and Nell’s unpretentious engagement with instinct, narrative and story led practise, and way of communicating generally, really accentuated the power of both women. Nell’s work seems to be defined in the same way mine is, that it is occurs as an extension of a very specific and decisive life choice, a very distinct identity that Nell inhabits with great credit to her, most especially as a hugely successful writer, because it is defined by brevity of spirit, humour, passionate engagement with fundamental narrative ideas and a clear, untrammelled sense of clarity. Lovely to discover this, and more about her heritage in Somerset, near my own home in Devon, over the hour.

We had a small break in a bar and then returned to the Casa del Lago, right by the lake, in a rainstorm for my second and final event. A poetry pantheon, 9 poets sat on thrones in front of a massive audience, at least 200, maybe up to 400 crammed into two levels and a balcony area, while each of us shared a short burst of work. I was the only one who read in English, but the audience were incredible, so attentive, so generous, and some of the other poets were remarkable. Forrest Gander, whose work and translations I’ve followed for years, was brilliant, and Joumana Haddad, was a revelation, an activist, a poet, a polyglot, she read in Spanish, despite being from Beirut, and killed the audience with her delivery and wit. It was an amazing mix of ages and styles, but really that’s what I always seek, so was delighted.
For my own part I read my poem Atacama, about Chile under Pinochet, and Que Bonitos Ochos Tienes, which is about Cartels in Mexico. I tried, as I often do, to be gentle and jokey in the intro, before my work, which is always depressing. It seemed to strike a chord with people, and the kindness of the people who came to watch, who came to speak to me, take pictures, sign books and stuff like that, made me feel very humbled, embarrassed and even a bit vulnerable, such was the openness and generosity. I was having picture requests with children and stuff. Quite mad, but enjoyable and resonant in its moderation. Another beautiful day, an unforgettable day, as all seem to be for me in Mexico

Camaradefest : October 25th : the full lineup

Camaradefest
100 poets. 50 pairs. one day.
october saturday 25th
the rich mix arts centre : main space
12 noon til late​​​​ : free entry
http://www.richmix.org.uk/whats-on/event/camaradefest-ii/
Starting at 12 noon and running all day, Camaradefest w​​ill present 50 brand new collaborative works involving 100 poets working in pairs. A unique one day festival of collaborative poetry. There will a book table to browse and chat with the poets, & lengthy intermissions between each of the five sessions in which to do so. Please come, stay the day and find below the remarkable lineup of poets, writers and textual artists. Everything is free to attend, bring friends, spread the word.http://weareenemies.com/camaradefestii.html
12noon
John Clegg & Holly Corfield Carr
Nick Murray & Aki Schilz
Sarah Dawson & Robin Boothroyd
Jonah Wilberg & Lucy Furlong
Vera Chok & Sophie Herxheimer
Jon Stone & Harry Wooler
Paul Hawkins & TBA
Cali Dux & Simon Pomery
Angus Sinclair & Laura Elliott
​Ross Sutherland & TBA
2pm
George Szirtes & Carol Watts
Gareth Rees & Gary Budden
Robert Kiely & Doug Jones
Mike Saunders & Emilia Weber
​Tamar Yoseloff & Claire Crowther​
Andy Spragg & Emma Hammond
Alan Halsey & Geraldine Monk
Nia Davies & Sarah Howe
Tim Allen & Richard Barrett
Prudence Chamberlain & Eley Williams
4pm
Hannah Silva & Andra Symons
Harry Man & Kirsten Irving
Vicky Sparrow & Dave Spittle​
​Agnes Lehoczky & Astrid Alben​
Isobel Dixon & Claire Trevien
Edmund Hardy & Amy Cutler
Ollie Evans & Becky Varley Winter​
Rebecca Tamas & Martin Jackson
Sarah Kelly & TBA
Jow Lindsay & Anne Laure Coxam
​
7pm
Colin Herd & Iain Morrison
Marcus Slease & JT Welsch​
​James Wilkes & Ariadne Radi Cor
Billy Ramsell & ​TBA
Sophie Collins & Livia Franchini
​Nikolai Duffy & Rhys Trimble
Ryan Van Winkle & TBA​
Calum Rodger & Anthony Autumn
Cristine Brache & Holly Childs
Lila Matsumoto & Samantha Walton
​
9pm
James Davies & Philip Terry
Nathan Jones & Christodoulos Makris​​​​​​​
​Zuzana Husarova & Olga Pek
​Alison Gibb & Kimberley Campanello
Sean Bonney & nick-e melville
​Luke Allan & Graeme Smith​
Sam Riviere & Crispin Best
James Byrne & Sandeep Parmar
Tim Atkins & Jeff Hilson
​Holly Pester & Emma Bennett