Published : GANGAN in print

I was freaked out at how nice the print edition of the latest GANGAN magazine from austria is and was. A lot of the work is visual or conceptual or in english, as one would expected with the brilliant max hofler editing it, for edition 50 - the future of literature (Yea right https://verlag.gangan.at/lit-mag/die-zukunft-der-literatur/

Die Zukunft [der Literatur] Max Höfler (Ed.): The Future [Of Literature] bilingual, Paperback, 176 pp. ISBN 978-3-900530-50-1, € 9,90

GANGAN Lit-Mag #50 Taschenbuch #50 EN

Konstantin Ames | Thomas Antonic | .aufzeichnensysteme | Iris Colomb | Ann Cotten | Crauss. | Brigitta Falkner | Frédéric Forte | Steven J. Fowler | Natascha Gangl | Mara Genschel | D. Holland-Moritz | Zuzana Husárová | Maja Jantar | Benediktas Januševičius | Mark Kanak | Ilse Kilic | Barbi Marković | Robert Herbert McClean | Alexander Micheuz | Nick Montfort | Fiston Mwanza Mujila | Simona Nastac & Olga Stehlíková | Jörg Piringer | Tomáš Přidal | Robert Prosser | Stefanie Sargnagel | Bernhard Saupe | Clemens Schittko | Ulrich Schlotmann | Stefan Schmitzer | Martin Glaz Serup | Muanis Sinanović | Dieter Sperl | Ulf Stolterfoht | Kinga Tóth | Mathias Traxler

A note on : launching Beastings in Amsterdam

i had a chance to see the Beastings album made by diamanda dramm of my poems, written for the purpose, launched in splendor in amsterdam this past dec 14th. i didn’t perform, but sat in the circle of musicians, led by diamanda, who played out the first half of the night, before there was a listening to the album, in darkness, for the second half.

as in 2018, the experience in holland, with my poems taken so seriously through diamanda’s playing and making of them was unusual for me. i had a chance to be on VPRO radio talking about them, not quite knowing what to say they were and realising how rare it is to be asked questions about my poems by people who have heard them. i had the chance to meet lots of new musicians too, alongside poets like chris cusack and nadia de vries and it was right what diamanda has made in this album was celebrated

https://prettypurgatory.bandcamp.com/album/beastings

A note on: Worm Wood trailer - a film with Tereza Stehlikova

I’m very excited that my film made with Tereza Stehlikova since 2015 will be premiered at Whitechapel Gallery on January 30th. A new blog too from Tereza on our last filming session, with pictures from this below https://cinestheticfeasts.com/2019/12/10/pirates-wormwood/

A note on : Literary Health at Writers Centre Kingston

Another really communal and generous WCK event, the final of the first term of our third year https://www.writerscentrekingston.com/literary

It featured 9 speakers, from backgrounds as diverse as anthropology and neuroscience, alongside poets and writers, all reflecting, obliquely on the notion of health and literature.

I read some poems, for the first time, from my new pamphlet Beastings, which is not meant to be shared alone but with a CD of the songs of the poems in the pamphlet https://prettypurgatory.bandcamp.com/album/beastings I read just three poems, tearing and licking pages but just reading calm calm

A note on : Timelapse at Kielder Forest

TIME-LAPSE / Kielder Art & Architecture commission / 2020

I have been really happy to work with my friend and collaborator David Rickard, an extraordinary artist, over the last year or so, developing a new poem / text about time, to be installed in his Timelapse artwork, soon to be installed in Kielder Forest. More on his piece “Combining dendrochronology and Time Dilation Theory 'Time-lapse' will form a spatial and temporal way-finder within the forest, joining the collection of sculptures and buildings at Kielder by James Turrell, Tania Kovats, David Adjaye and many others”

The sculpture contains my text on its floor and ceiling, read above and below the people who walk within it and will be revealed to the public in 2020. http://www.david-rickard.net/ and more on Kielder http://www.visitkielder.com/

A note one : my one-hour solo performance in Vilnius

Why give me an hour? Why give anyone an hour? It’s weird how everytime I say yes to things like this I forget how exhausting they are. How much they wear you down, waiting, and thinking. Especially when I try to keep things, in the last few years, as open ended, spacially responsive and improvised as possible. I ended up creating a kind of narrative story of different things, trying, I suppose, to set up the concept I was trying to get people to get to know me, while then turning on that ‘authenticity’ with constant, menacing and non-menacing swings.

I first talked, then did an impromptu Q&A, then did some puppetry with a mole, then read poems I pretended were new but were Lithuanian poems put through google translate, then read cinema poems, then destroyed a book and gave it out, then showed a poetry film, then went outside and banged on the windows while they watched with my head, then played with a dog, then played some drums that happened to be there, then lay down, then read a collaborative poem with host Ausra Kaziliunaite, then did sound poems with the names of Lithuanian poets. I was knackered. / Some amazing pics below by Paulius Zizliauskas

A note : The Vilnius Camarade and collaborating with Zygimantas Kudirka

I was asked by the brilliant Ausra Kaziliunaite to curate a European Camarade during the Paviljonas Book Festival in Vilnius this past November 30th 2019.

It was mostly visiting poets and Lithuanian poets, and the latter, those of the contemporary Lithuanian scene, are amazing. It’s a cracking time for interesting poetry in the Baltic in general, but especially in Vilnius. And friends from Russia, Latvia, Romania came too.  

All the videos are here, worth checking out https://www.europeanpoetryfestival.com/vilnius

I had the chance to collaborate with poet music monster Zygimantas Kurdika. I met him in London performing a few years back and his work is completely unique and brilliant. We improv’d hard and just had 36 questions for each other, trying to expose our psychologies to the people foolish enough to attend.

Published : four unfinished memmoirs brut poems on GANGAN

GANGAN is a powerhouse journal from Austria that has made it to 50 editions. This special edition, entitled the Future of Literature, has been edited by Max Hofler and features four of my poem brut visual poems, taken from my book ‘Unfinished Memmoirs of a Hypocrite’ published by Hesterglock Press.

https://www.gangan.at/50/sj-fowler/

The issue is extraordinary, Max has compiled work by some of Europe’s most interesting writers including for example check out Simona Nastac and Olga Stehlikova, or Max Höfler | Konstantin Ames | Thomas Antonic | .aufzeichnensysteme | Iris Colomb | Ann Cotten | Crauss. | Brigitta Falkner | Frédéric Forte | Natascha Gangl | Mara Genschel | D. Holland-Moritz | Zuzana Husárová | Maja Jantar | Benediktas Januševičius | Mark Kanak | Ilse Kilic |Barbi Marković | Robert Herbert McClean | Alexander Micheuz | Nick Montfort | Fiston Mwanza Mujila | Simona Nastac & Olga Stehlíková | Jörg Piringer | Tomáš Přidal | Robert Prosser | Stefanie Sargnagel | Bernhard Saupe | Clemens Schittko | Ulrich Schlotmann | Stefan Schmitzer | Martin Glaz Serup | Muanis Sinanović | Dieter Sperl | Ulf Stolterfoht | Kinga Tóth | Mathias Traxler |

A note on : Writers Centre Kingston - Memento Mori

https://www.writerscentrekingston.com/#/mementomori/

The Writers’ Centre Kingston program this year has been really so excellent. I made some curatorial changes, to bring the emphasis from visiting speakers to shorter readings with more locally based writers, and push the themes. It’s worked. Every event has been full and with a palpable sense of innovation, range and community. This was a remarkable one in the Museum of Futures, with 10 of us responding to the concept of the Memento Mori. All the videos are here.

My own piece was a slight repeat, from a performance I did once also for Kingston folk. I listed three times, from the top of my head, where I thought I had nearly died. I said to everyone at the end, they were all lies. In fact, that was the lie, said on the hoof because I wanted to sound cool. They are all true, I think.

Published : cinema poem on Why Now

One of my cinema / film poems taken from my booklette with Broken Sleep, ‘I stand alone by the devils’ has been published on the journal, which is nice. It is my favourite film I think, Angel Heart.

https://whynow.co.uk/

https://www.brokensleepbooks.com/product-page/sj-fowler-i-stand-alone-by-the-devils-and-other-poems-on-films

Published : ENTHUSIASM -a film (with Noah Hutton)

Enormously generous of the brilliant Hotel Magazine to host, and premiere, my film made with Noah Hutton (Noah made the film, edited it, and I think conceived it. I wrote it, starred in it, and watched im work, to learn) https://partisanhotel.co.uk/Noah-Hutton-SJ-Fowler

A short film—a transatlantic cinematic collaboration produced as part of The Hub residency at Wellcome Trust—Enthusiasm draws on new techniques in analyzing internal monologues and self-consciousness used by contemporary neuroscientists. Utilising the possibilities of cinema to reveal the conflicts of inner and outer narrative, how our internal and external languages collide, the film features improvised and acted scenes alongside voiceover techniques, to juxtapose that which is said and that which is thought. The text featured below is the latter.

Misophonia, literally “hatred of sound,” is a rarely diagnosed disorder, commonly thought to be of neurological origin, in which negative emotions (anger, flight, hatred, disgust) are triggered by specific sounds. The sounds can be loud or soft. There are ex-votos, or acts of faith, all probably in intentional or symbolic order, with each scene occupying its hierarchical place, and what’s more, each subject, each human figure, rendered in a predetermined size and scale in accordance with some stray, subtle meaning. What is the meaning? That to correct ourselves we must be honest with ourselves. We must admit our desires in order to resist them. This might not seem possible at first. To admit to the harm we might want to do. Because everyone else seems so still. Of course, many are, frozen, fixed—never connected enough to gain motion or momentum. But so often, being too tired, or not methodological enough, we visitors hurry on, distracted, through the zoo. A touch of fingertips on an exposed forearm, a hand resting flat upon a back. Eyes, widely staring, invitational, being taken seriously. The underlying attraction to individuals who are brighter than us, more intelligent, but who are at the same time at a genetic disadvantage—utterly malleable through the lottery of genes. Once you’ve got them to touch you, your arm, your neck, your hair, then it tends to be chance has had its moment, and the endless search for control has found its mark. Can this kind of mechanism be as satisfying if it isn’t built on an assumption that everything is founded upon chance operation? Visions of perfect relations, spaces beyond words. A couple, you and the famous actress, neuroscientist, friend, lithograph, hologram. The last minute is her smiling, correcting the vocal fry register, and the whole abstinence movement of America. You can see, if you watch closely, the dying possibility of a deeper link.

The film being published / premiered / hosted by Hotel is the second of their very generous features on my collaborations to help share word of my selected collaborations NEMESES with Haverthorn press https://www.haverthorn.com/books/nemeses-selected-collaborations-of-sj-fowler-volume-2

A note : Beastings, released

EP Beastings is out on Pretty Purgatory Records. 
order limited edition CD&Chapbook or cassette HERE
also on Spotify and wherever else music streams.

release show December 14 in Splendor with extra super special guests.

Go here please, have a listen https://prettypurgatory.bandcamp.com/album/beastings

You can now order digital, CD, Cassetter or CD & book of mine poems in them, of the album Diamanda Dramm has made of my text/poems.

You can now pre-order digital, CD, Cassetter or CD & book of mine poems in them, of the album Diamanda Dramm has made of my text/poems. CD with accompanying 29-page poetry chapbook featuring lyrics and expanded poems by SJ Fowler, published by Sampson Low LTD (London, England since 1793).
Includes digital pre-order of Beastings. You get 2 tracks now (streaming via the free Bandcamp app and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the complete album the moment it’s released.

A mention below from the All Around Sound website -

"Amazon", the second single from Dramm's forthcoming album Beastings, immediately hooked me with is juxtaposition of opposites - Dramm's vocals are light and airy against at first an effect not unlike a sliding trombone, and then a mounting cacophony of Dramm caresses Fowler's texts holding them firmly aloft above them to set the mood but also to leap out among the fray of otherworldly sounds Dramm is somehow able to weave from her violin. Fowler's texts are elusive, weaving paths of serpentine grace as Dramm's accompaniment blooms forth, both occasionally dealing glancing blows at they intersect at just the right moments. "To be inside a background noise of a thing I don't possess" Dramm sings, accented by a rumbling low end. / "Amazon" is an excellent piece of songcraft - multitudinous in sound and meaning, a luxurious unfurling reverie that's both delightful simple and awe-inspiringly complex. It's a testament to Dramm's compositional prowess that she's able to craft such a lush backdrop of infinitely rewarding instrumental flourishes that doesn't distract from the simplistic but elusive beauty of Fowler's text.

A note on : Performing with Phil Minton & Eley Williams at Conway Hall for Small Publishers Fair

A brilliant way for me, personally, to end a wonderful experience, as it always is, at the Small Publishers Fair, brilliantly run by Helen Mitchell. So many people in Conway Hall over these two days are friends or people who have actively supported my often quite distinctly uncommercial work. They do so generously and often against their interests, I think, so I see these fairs as an opportunity to thank them. I always try to visit every table, meet as many new people as possible, and say thanks to those I know, and buy books. This year I had the chance also to have the last launch of my selected collaborations, NEMESES, with haverthorn press, by collaborating with my friends and peers I admire, Eley Williams and Phil Minton, both of whom are in the book naturally. I felt quite content, liking them so much, and liking the fair, and conway hall, to have the chance to do this, and I also realised that what I felt was that it is something that I can transition from a literary reading with Eley rooted in her wit to a fully improv free music vocalisation sound poetry piece with Phil, quite comfortably. In fact, perhaps my work is the space between those two things, both powerfully and obviously literary and poetic to me, but on the surface, for the poor audience, clearly radically different.

A note on : Test Centre exhibition at Small Publishers Fair

Happy to be featured in this exhibition celebrating Test Centre http://smallpublishersfair.co.uk/test-centre-small-publishers-fair-exhibition-2019/ “The Small Publishers Fair exhibition 2019 features Test Centre publications and is curated by Jess Chandler.

Test Centre Publications, an independent publishing house and record label based in Hackney, London, was run by Jess Chandler and Will Shutes from 2011 to 2018. Test Centre’s varied output ranged from spoken-word vinyl LPs to debut poetry collections, experimental fiction, anthologies, interdisciplinary projects and an annual magazine of new writing, Test Centre. / This exhibition looks back at Test Centre’s publishing history, from early limited edition pamphlets, prints and vinyl LPs with Stewart Home, Chris Petit and Iain Sinclair, and the first issues of its magazine, following the growth of Test Centre’s output and reputation into an innovative and independent publisher of poetry, fiction and interdisciplinary and collaborative projects.  https://prototypepublishing.co.uk/2019/10/01/small-publishers-fair/

A note on : Poem Brut for the 12th time was great weird

The poem brut was as it always seems to be, teeming with new people and ideas in a space and place that felt communal and generous but where proper intense and weird work was shared with a seriousness and play in balance which i am proud i somewhat curated. See all the videos and they are worth seeing www.poembrut.com/richmix

and I launched my NEMESES book again but this time alone, or self-partnering, until a mole helped me.

A note on : Nemeses launch at York University

Generous of York University and JT Welsch to host a launch of Nemeses, my selected collaborations from Haverthorn press, https://www.haverthorn.com/books/nemeses-selected-collaborations-of-sj-fowler-volume-2 which was basically an hour long meta-performance with meself and Colin Herd, Prue Chamberlain Bussey, Harry Man, Tom Jenks and Nathan Walker. All these brilliant poets and artists are in the book, of course, but Harry Man was the anti-host, bewildering students with interruptions, and then the collaborations ranged from gift giving ceremonies to neverending introductions to sound poems to makeup application. It was weird and good. And we finished with a Q&A, which was actually lovely. We then all departed for dinner, after washing our faces. A lovely experience, as I always have when reading in York.

A note on : performing with Joseph Turrent and Karen Sandhu for Nemeses launch

The second NEMESES launch, this time in Kingston upon Thames, performing collaborations with two contributors collaborators Karen Sandhu and Joseph Turrent. Two very contrasting performances, one about parasites and my live death, and the other about oranges, and perspective, and jars, and my live death.

A note on : Nemeses at Writers Centre Kingston

https://www.writerscentrekingston.com/nemeses Loads of videos of the performances and amazing pics by Madeleine Rose at this link in what was a startling Camarade event.

So grand to bring a proper lineup of brilliant poets to kingston, for my students and the writers centre i run. so much of the work here was engaged and ranged widely and wildly, as is the best way. very much worth watching the performances

A note on : Christodoulos Makris & others on NEMESES

http://yesbutisitpoetry.blogspot.com/2019/11/nemeses-by-sj-fowler-collaborators.html ….

Steven writes: "It is always in compiling Nemeses that I really realised how many collaborations I have undertaken in the five year period the book covers. It presents excerpts of full collections alongside works made specifically for Nemeses. It draws from full feature films, exhibitions, commissions, installations and poems made for performances around the world. The book is finished with an essay which details, in basic terms, how it was constructed and what my thinking has become around poetry and collaboration."

Our text for 'The New War Machine' is edited from transcriptions of two semi-improvised collaborative performances enacted as part of the Arts Council-supported Yes But Are We Enemies project and 10-day tour of Ireland and London that I produced and co-curated with Steven in 2014 - the performances in question happening in Galway Arts Centre on 21 September and Rich Mix Arts Centre, London, on 27 September of that year.

Additionally, I'm proud to have played some part in a producing, curatorial or editorial capacity in bringing about or supporting some of the other collaborations featured in Nemeses: 'Subcritical Tests' with Ailbhe Darcy began at Yes But Are We Enemies and culminated in a book-length project which then became the first Gorse Editions title we published, in 2017; 'It Is What Is Love / It Is What Is Hate' with Rike Scheffler is also forthcoming in gorse No. 11; 'Beastings' with Diamanda Dramm is the result of a collaboration that began after Steven and Diamanda met at Phonica: Eight in March 2018 (where they performed storming individual sets) and with a full album release forthcoming later this month; and 'The Irish Character Study' with Billy Ramsell was conceived & performed as part of Yes But Are We Enemies.

You can read Steven's introduction to Nemeses on the gorse website. The book is available to buy from HTVN press.

Published : Nemesia #7 on Wazogate with Patrick Savolainen

Very happy the 7th of my series of new european collaborative poems published by spanish online interface magicland has emerged. Written with the swiss poet Patrick Savolainen

https://www.wazogate.com/questions-of-neutrality/

Do you journey for work, or for leisure?
You think, inevitably, about how simple the world would be if you could separate the two.
And then it occurs to you
you no longer know what the latter means.
Leisure. It sounds menacing to you now.
A concept with faint smells of totalitarianism.
But what you don’t know is you’re thinking that because you are a soft blurt.
A moaner.
You have read too much and been pampered so hard that you no longer realise how easy your breakfast is.
What gradually burns your throat is a lozenge of love of others. To most.
Your weather is patient, your pressure is light.
Your frog plays fair with the whims of small farmers and other peasants.
Your barely know what work means, so how could you understand leisure?

Do you, A, journey inward
or B, keep pretending, as you munch your pills, this is all working out for you