Some achievements are the stuff of eulogies, and this may indeed sneek into my deathwords, along with ‘definitely not sleeping, we checked’. A lamb has been named after me on a farm on the west coast of Norway. How? well Hilde Myklebust, whom I met on a reading in Alesund back in 2019, who became a friend in correspondence, and whom I interviewed online for my festival in 2020 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFiv-eG-_-8 has named two of her new lambs after me, as she promised in the interview. She kept her lamby promise. She said ‘Steve is directly from your name, but with norwegian pronunciation. The norwegian verb " å steve", is an perticular way of singing or performing an old type of poem called stev.’ Is this news? Yes, yes it is. Look upon my lambs and rejoice.
Published : Hotel, Phonica - why my work is pointless
I’m very lucky to be part of a new series published by Hotel magazine, edited by Dominic Jaeckle, about the Phonica event series, curated by Christodoulos Makris. I was asked to provide an article, reflection, response to a performance I did in Dublin for the series in early 2018. It just so happens that this performance was one of the most important for me, in developing my live work. At this link you can find my recollections along with video of the performance, paged artfully by Dominic https://partisanhotel.co.uk/Pointless-Work
My performance at PHONICA on March 26th 2018 was a breakthrough. If there is ever a recounting of my ‘career’ in literary performance, one of the many terms I use that no one else really seems to use, then this would be a dramatic scene. Let’s be honest with ourselves. There will be no recounting. This evening in SMOCK ALLEY THEATRE, I wasn’t very well. It drew down my scant nerves, or better said, filters. Not towards antagonism, as had been the case in the past, but towards almost pure improvisation, as a mode towards a live, living poetry. The work I did on that night led me to think through liveness in a concrete way, it led to THIS—a nice juicy section on my website. I describe a TALKING performance thusly ... A SPECIFIC KIND OF PERFORMANCE WHICH EXPLORES TROPES OF PUBLIC SPEAKING, RECITATION, READING AND INTRODUCTION, WHICH USES DERIVATION, PROLIXITY, MENTAL ASSOCIATION AND SUBVERTED EXPECTATION TO MAKE OFTEN ENTIRELY IMPROVISED TALKING PERFORMANCES OR TALK-POEMS.
Published : Aww-struck Anthology and online Exhibition
Out in a week, and produced to a remarkable standard, I am happy to have a bevy of my sticker poems and collage poems in this new anthology from Poem Atlas https://www.poematlas.com/awwstruck-book
“A wide range of visual poems themed around cuteness is framed with significant critical essays and page-based poems that take our theme to another dimension. Featuring a wide range of poetic and critical responses to cuteness by UK-based and international poets and academics including Chris Kerr, Chris McCabe, Daniele Pantano, Karenjit Sandhu, Vik Shirley, Kate Siklosi, Greg Thomas et al.”
The theme of the anthology is resonant with some of my visual poetry work, without design, but undeniably. My upcoming two visual collections - Sticker Poems from Trickhouse Press and Bastard Poems from Steel Incisors - get their first outings in grand company.
In the meantime there is a brilliant online exhibition of work featured in the book, which is well worth a free look https://www.poematlas.com/aww-struck
A note on : Photo Poetry Surfaces and the Bristol Photo Festival
very cool to be a part of this project celebrating photo poetry, something ive been working away at the last half decade, teaching, sharing publishing https://www.photopoetrysurfaces.com/
my work with Norwegian poet Bard Torgersen - CROWFINGER - will be part of the exhibition online and I’ll be appearing at the online event on June 17th. www.bristolphotofestival.org/photopoetry
As part of the Bristol Photo Festival 2021, the Photo Poetry SURFACES (photo-visual-poetics) activities (curated by David Solo, Astra Papachristodoulou and Paul Hawkins) will be exploring and presenting a range of works. The programs will include mapping out the range of combinations (and sometimes going outside the lines), exhibiting a selection of current examples and presenting mixed media presentations of the work. We’re also hosting conversations about the nature of such collaborations, how such material may be “read” and looking at ways to assess or evaluate it.
Published : 3 poems on films on Anthropocene
Very likely the last burst of poems to be published in a journal from my 9th collection, out recently in April 2021, Come and See the Songs of Strange Days : Poems on Films, with Broken Sleep press.
Published by Anthropocene, edited by Charlie Baylis, this selection features an asemic poem celebrating John Milius’s surfer classic Big Wednesday, Bela Tarr’s adaptation of Satantango and Andrew Kotting’s This Filthy Earth.
https://www.anthropocenepoetry.org/post/3-poems-by-sj-fowler-1
A note on: An exhibition tour of A History of Unnecessary Developments
Two weeks, bursting out of lockdown, pushing through barriers of fultility, or difficulty in opening up, coming out of routines, meeting friends again, making works, dragging them across London, collaborating, reading, performing, cleaning, hanging - this exhibition, all told, feels well worth it, now it is finished. We documented all the events and works in great depth www.stevenjfowler.com/developments and before we left I managed to shoot this tour, so that the works briefly up may be seen in perpetuity.
A note on: Talking Yi Sang with the brilliant Jack Jung
So great of the Korean Cultural Centre UK to ask me to talk with Jack Jung about the brilliant Yi Sang : selected poetry recently for an online event. And even better, they recorded it and made it readily available to the world on youtube. I learned so much from this event, Jack spoke so generously, it was a pleasure all round. And what a poet Yi Sang was
A note on : poem of the day at National Poetry Library
https://www.nationalpoetrylibrary.org.uk/online-poetry/poems/photographer
an unexpected thing, my poem The Photographer, taken from my 2014 book The Rottweiler’s Guide to the Dog Owner, has been featured on the National Poetry Library’s website as their poem of the day for May 5th 2021.
it’s an audio recording of the poem, one I gave years ago I think, I don’t remember. it’s a very short clipped work kind of about my friend alexander kell, who took the photo featured on the site, while we were both working at the british museum
A note on : Bristol - The Printed Poetry Project
Angie Butler at work
I am very lucky indeed to have been working on a project with Angie Butler and Sarah Bodman at UWE in Bristol over the last number of months, since the summer of 2020 really, that will come to fruition in multiple instances throughout this year 2021. The Printed Poetry Project will see some collaborations, teaching, publications, conversation, conferences and the like, and it begins with my going to Bristol next week and working with Angie at the Whittington Press in Cheltenham https://whittingtonpressshop.com. What we create is ahead of us, but it’s the kind of project I really love, where i get to learn and work collectively and drain other people’s experience to open up new avenues in my own work. As part of my time in Bristol, I’ll be chatting with Angie in this online talk, which anyone can watch!
Print in Conversation: The Printed Poetry Project with Steven J Fowler: poet, writer and artist (13 May 2021)
https://cfpr.uwe.ac.uk/the-printed-poetry-project-with-steven-j-fowler/
Thursday 13 May 12.30pm – 1.15pm A free, open session for anyone to join. Part of the Art of the Maker event series : An informal lunchtime public engagement session, talking candidly with poet, writer and artist, Steven J Fowler about his collaborative research project-in-progress with the Centre for Fine Print Research (CFPR), UWE, Bristol. We will discuss Steven’s experience so far, in terms of the development of our project ideas and how the work has developed during the course of the week. We will explain how we are using the craft of type-setting and the process of letterpress printing in relation to the haptic production of the printed word within contemporary publishing activities. They’ll be time for Q&A, too!
Published : reading list massage (If A Leaf Falls press)
Very happy to have a new pamphlet released with If a leaf falls press, in an edition of 60, entitled reading list massage.
It has sold out on the publisher’s site, Sam Riviere, but do go buy other titles https://www.samriviere.com/index.php?/together/if-a-leaf-falls-press/
I have a few copies spare, signed, and welcome enquiries if anyone wants one http://www.stevenjfowler.com/contact.
A few words on the book = “A succinct suite of minimal misspelled poems written for, and published by, Sam Riviere's If a leaf falls micropress. Fragments of speech, mis or unlabelled quotations and comforting typopoetry reference self-referentiality as a kind of brief, grim spectre descending upon writers and academics, in rare moments of lucidity, too clever by half.”
The booklette was written a few years ago, and is constructed, in parts, of quotations, with my poetry written through. The tone was meant to be different than most of my literary work, ironising a personal subjective involvement in the poems a little bit, following people like Paul Blackburn, Ed Dorn. and Tom Raworth, who weren’t ironic, but acknowledged themselves in their poems with a raised eyebrow.
❧ If a Leaf Falls Press publishes limited edition titles with an emphasis on appropriative and procedural writing processes.
A note on : Thomas Helm's The Mountain Where Nothing Happens
really happy for thomas helm to have his debut poetry book out with alien buddha press and i was happy to to contribute a comment on it, after reading early and final drafts. thomas is doing grand work at mercurius, his journal, so good to see his first come first and is available here https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mountain-Where-Nothing-Happens/dp/B093R5TGPX/
New film : Mallarme and Harriet Live Underground
The second in my new series of short poetry films centred on London and the poets who littered its streets has been released! It’s been included in the online video poetry festival hosted by KULTkolteszetnap in Hungary, edition 30, closing that program, which was curated by the brilliant Kornelia Deres. https://www.kulter.hu/2021/04/kultkolteszetnap-10-resz/
The film was shot in Kensal Green Cemetery, at the grave of Harriet Smyth https://www.mylondon.news/news/local-news/kensal-green-grave-hid-story-5965815 and in Knightsbridge where Mallarme stayed. / you can see it on youtube here for KULTköltészetnap https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IPbAN2SgZM or below on me new vimeo channel
A note on: Facial animations and the closing event of A History of Unnecessary Developments
A third and final restricted event for Tereza Stehlikova and I’s exhibition at Willesden Gallery, this was another grand one, curated ably by Tereza. These events, with a max of 7 people, create something obviously intimate but also beyond that, removing expectation of audience, something palpably focused and playful and relaxed. This night we had powerful poetry readings by Cristina Viti and Stephen Watts, alongside talks by Jo Gibbons, my old friend and an incredible landscape architect, as well as animation performances and more. For my own part I read again, for the second time ever, from my CAR GIANT pamphlet that I had written for Tereza and I’s film, which is the centrepiece of this exhibition. http://www.stevenjfowler.com/developments
I also, unexpectedly, and gladly (after spending the event filming with two cameras, for my youtube and tereza’s instagram live) got to collaborate with the animator and artist Birgitta Hosea. http://www.birgittahosea.co.uk/ Birgitta was projected neon asemic poems and lines and drawings upon my own asemic poems! A quite brilliant performance, and she allowed me, or urged me, to get in there, in the way, to be painted upon. At first I wrote on my works and then I just stood there, like a dummy, in the best role a collaborator can have, while she drew upon my visage. It was cool to see on video afterward.
Though the exhibition runs for another week, it was this event that cemented Tereza and I’s feeling that the whole endeavour, run without much footfall as the lockdown trace remains, was wholly worthwhile.
A note on : my art-poems in A History of Unnecessary Developments
I had a friend who can take photos come into to see my new, brief, exhibition at Willesden Gallery, and try to turn chicken beaks into gold. The photos are excellent, and improve my works when seen in the flesh. In a sense, these works do consolidate a lot of my recent explorations in visual poetry - especially in the art poems field, which I’ve loosely theorised in a lot of my teaching. They were all made for the exhibition, on wallpaper paper, with indian ink and some acryllic paint. Tonnes more photos of the exhibition are at……. www.stevenjfowler.com/developments
A note on : Edwin Morgan Centenary Concrete Poetry Poster
Such a pleasure to have been a tiny part of the 101 WORDS FOR EDWIN MORGAN CENTENARY concrete poetry POSTER OF 101 ONE WORD POEMS, edited brilliantly by Julie Johnstone and Greg Thomas.
“101 poets, artists, publishers, editors and researchers were invited to send a word or a one word poem for Edwin Morgan on the occasion of his centenary. This poster is published on what would have been his 101st birthday, 27 April 2021. The contributors were given the following instructions: Each “word” must be a straight horizontal line, fifteen characters maximum in length (no minimum length), and must not include any spaces. Each letter and punctuation mark counts as a character (think of it as having fifteen presses of a typewriter’s keys to work with, except for the return key and space bar). The poster design is based on an initial arrangement of words by character count, with each group of words then arranged in alphabetical order.”
My word was URSIGN, check out all contributors and more info https://juliejohnstone.com/edwinmorgan/
Published : Virtual Oasis, an AI anthology from Trickhouse Press
Very good yes to have a poem in a new anthology from Trickhouse Press, edited by Dan Power, who are publishing my new visual poetry brut book Sticker Poems soon in 2021. The anthology is entitled VIRTUAL OASIS and “is a collaboration between human writers and AI artists, a dream shared between machines both fleshy and fibre-optic. This anthology contains 23 original poems responding to automatically generated images.” Some brilliant people within, such as James Knight, Matthew Haigh, Robin Boothroyd, Sam Riviere, and Vik Shirley. Buy one here https://www.trickhousepress.com/product/virtual-oasis-/5?cs=true&cst=custom
A note on : blurbing the apocalypse
Delighted to offer a supportive quote for a new, hugely ambitious anthology of apocalyptic visual poetry edited by James Knight for his press Steel Incisors, who will publish my selected collages - Bastard Poems - later in 2021.
The anthology is called The Mouth of a Lion, and is available https://steelincisorsvispo.wordpress.com/ with some brilliant poets within.
A note on : The popogrou collective at A History of Unnecessary Developments
The second event to take place, away from the public with the seven person restriction of pseudo lockdown, during my exhibition with Tereza Stehlikova at Willesden Gallery www.stevenjfowler.com/developments
This was the inaugural public showing of a new collective I am lucky to be a part of. POPOGROU - featuring Martin Wakefield, Susie Campbell, Bob Bright, Simon Tyrrell, Patrick Cosgrove (all of whom were present on the day) and Sylee Gore, Emma Hellyer, Victoria Kaye (who provided a brand new hand made publication of intersemiotic translations to rep themselves from beyond).
The performances were extraordinary, and the sense of it being somewhere between a workshop, a catch up of friends after so long without such things, and a high level literary endeavour exploring what is possible with the reading and performances really was uplifting. / For my own part I gave a reading from my 2020 short fiction pamphlet, which was written for the film Tereza and I made, which was screened at the whitechapel and I had realised that I had never read out loud before. https://sampsonlow.co/2020/01/29/the-car-giant-sj-fowler/
A note on : Beir Bua vispo edition - sticker poem cover art
A new issue of Beir Bua, edited by Michelle Moloney King, has arrived, a secret issue https://beirbuajournal.wordpress.com/issue-iii-2/
It features many poets whom I’ve had the chance to work with on my courses or collaborate with. Michelle has very kindly suggested the impetus for this issue in my seen as read visual poetry course, and the issue features one of my incoming Sticker Poems for the cover too. Well worth a look