A note on : Alphabet in Decay exhibition

Really happy to have a work in this remarkable exhibition hosted by etkbooks stores gallery in Berne, Switzerland, curated by Joakim Norling of Timglaset.

Alphabet in Decay – International exhibition of visual poetry beyond language. Artists and authors from 11 countries. Curated by Timglaset Editions, Sweden. Exhibition @ etkbooks store, 05.11.2021-26.11.2021

“the fact that the letters of the alphabet are instantly recognizable is one of the foundations of language and of poetry. but what happens when individual letters lose their meaning and become unrecognizable? this exhibition brings together works by visual poets and artists from around the world who have tweaked and manipulated the letters of the alphabet to the point where they have become illegible and decayed, or devised new representations of individual letters.” (Joakim Norling, Timglaset Editor)

At this link you can download a pdf of the whole exhibition catalogue https://www.etkbooks.com/alphabet/

Work: Atrocita is an asemic poem working through its own material – indian ink and spit – moving from legibility to open meaning. It is taken from the book Aletta Ocean's Alphabet Empire (Hesterglock Press), which was a volume of hand-made poems exploring the eros-less sexuality of the internet age through a singular aesthetic of black indian ink, mess, smudge, grids and scrawls.

A note on : European Poetry Festival begins in 10 days, with Swiss then Norwegian poets!

EUROPEAN POETRY FESTIVAL : SWITZERLAND
November Saturday 20th at Rich Mix, London
www.europeanpoetryfestival.com/swiss

7pm doors / Free Entrance : EPF 2021 begins with an event centered around visiting contemporary Swiss poets presenting brand new performance collaborations with British-based counterparts, made for the night, at one of East London’s most iconic poetry venues. With Baptiste Gaillard & Vik Shirley / Rolf Hermann and Joe Dunthorne / Clea Chopard & SJ Fowler / Ghazal Mosadeq and Simona Nastac / Mikael Buck and Michael O’Mahony / Vanessa Onwuemezi and Martin Wakefield / Ana Seferovic and Konstantinos Papacharalampos & more. Supported by Pro Helvetia.

EUROPEAN POETRY FESTIVAL : NORWAY
November tuesday 23rd at Open Ealing, London
www.europeanpoetryfestival.com/norway

7pm doors / Free Entrance : EPF 2021 continues with a celebration of contemporary Norwegian poetry, in collaboration. New performance poems made in tandem for this event will be presented across styles and languages. With Endre Ruset & Harry Man / Bjørn Vatne & Richard Marshall / Jon Ståle Ritland & JT Welsch / Maren Nygård & Susie Campbell / Silje Ree & Maria Celina Val / Tamar Yoseloff & Alison Gill / Chris Kerr & Virna Teixeira. Supported by The Norwegian Embassy UK and NORLA. The event will also serve as a launch for Utøya Thereafter : Poems in Memory of the 2011 Norway Attacks by Harry Man and Endre Ruset available from Hercules Editions

A note on : video Kamen's exhibition with audio of my poem

A cool video of Rebecca Kamen's remarkable exhibition Reveal: The Art of Reimaging Scientific Discovery at the Katzen Arts Center in the American University Museum, which features audio of the poem i wrote in response to the works, read by me, with Videography by Gregory R. Staley and other audio by breath artist: Shodekeh Talifero

A note on : Writers Kingston begins, Seen as Read launch

A wonderful start to a new year of Writers Kingston events, and opening in the new Town House building for the first time, award winning as it is, we were in the beautiful courtyard venue. 10 readers, all poets featured in a new visual poetry anthology Ive edited with kingston university press, all presented short new performances. I got to meet in person some poets I had corresponded with for some time alongside some old friends. More info on the event will be up on www.writerskingston.com/seenasread

Im happy to say the anthology has nearly sold out its first run, but a few copies remain before I likely have a second print done with the publishers. If you’d like one https://poembrut.bigcartel.com/product/seenasread

At a time in the near future I’ll be doing a proper online launch and sharing more information on the book, but with my festival coming, things are a little busied. For now, please visit the writers kingston youtube channel to watch all the performances https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2LmXtC6HArB9k2QSLWQGJA/videos

New newsletter with the things of summer and winter

A collection of two dozen publications, interviews, exhibitions and commissions for my occasional newsletter https://mailchi.mp/5a872462eb0e/moles-boats-beasts-and-moons-4959594?e=9fedde3ef8

A note on : Bab's Tractor at Poem Brut Bristol

The first of a new series of improvised performances I'm maybe doing, following the adventures of a cockney cat Babs, and likely the content of a new cassette release I'll be doing entitled Bab’s Adventures : A Sound Poetry Odyssey – somewhere in between found sound material following Leon Ferrari, sound poetry in the mode of Ghedalia Tazartes and improvised talking performance kind of echoing David Antin – in 2022 with Stephen Emmerson's EIGHTOX publishers. People seemed to like it, at a poem brut event in an ex-newsagents in a shopping centre on the outskirts of Bristol anyway.

Published : 25 Poems from Nomad Letterpress and AB Press

The first limited edition letterpress publication of my nascent career! Poems by me about the process of letterpress, specifically the way in which Angie Butler of AB Press and Pat Randle of Nomad Letterpress operate, and how they collaborate, and how they use the vernacular of their artform with all its unique traditions and techniques. It has been handmade and letterpressed in an edition of 50 and is available by emailing angie.butler@uwe.ac.uk for a surprising bargain of £10 while stocks last.

A hearty thanks to my friends Angie and Pat, and a video here of us launching the publication at the Arnolfini gallery as the finale of the Printed Poetry Project on October 14th.

A note on : Penteract Podcast 31 - on European Poetry

Very nice to be on the penteract podcast for the third time, and for this one talking about European Poetry and my European Poetry Festival. Hosted by Anthony Etherin and Clara Daneri it was myself and Astra Papachristodoulou.

All listenable here, 90 minutes https://www.buzzsprout.com/834940/9361972

A note on : Poem Brut in Bristol

In town for the printed poetry project I decided to celebrate the opening of Paul Hawkins Eachwhat Industries cultural space, offered by Hytha Studios in an old newsagent in a shopping centre in Knowle, Bristol, by organising an ambitious poem brut event with many poets based in the area and a wee bit beyond.

Some special in the sauce this night, everyone with 5 minutes, wandering in from the nearby Iceland, b&m stores and slot machine casino. A really brilliant space with really brilliant performances, all 12 were really seriously prepared and completely idiosyncratically unique to their author.

The event was also the second launch of my Bastard Poems, selected collages, with Steel Incisors press https://www.steelincisors.com/product/bastard-poems/2?cp=true&sa=true&sbp=false&q=false

A note on : Printed Poetry Symposium at Arnolfini and a bag poem

Part two of the Printed Poetry Project, curated by Angie Butler, and centred around an amazing residency collaboration that took place this past May when myself and Angie visited Pat Randle of Nomad Letterpress at Whittington Press.

I documented that week here, and it was a rare chance for a deep exchange between letterpress artists and printers and poets, which led us to this symposium at the Arnolfini in Bristol, where Angie extended the dictum out to many in the field who are exploring the possibilities of poetry and letterpress.

A day of talks, a pop up bookfair and for Angie, Pat and I the release of our new publication 25 poems. I had the chance to participate in a roundtable, talking of our project and my experience in general, and got to meet some extraordinary artists and poets. There was also the ‘publication’ of a poem of mine, written for the occasion, on goodie bags given out to everyone, or released, in a limited edition of 80. You think you bag now, a poem for the ages, one of the great bag poems of our time.

European Poetry Festival : Winter 2021

I’m so happy to be welcoming old friends and new from across Europe to come to London for my festival. It’s been a labour of love, a solid chunk of work for one person, but the results will be worth it.

The EPF bursts back into live life with 7 events in 10 days in venues across London. Over 25 poets from across the continent come to the UK to collaborate and perform with British and Britain-based writers. Celebrating poetry across styles and languages, and pushing innovation, this is a welcome chance to see poets from beyond the UK presenting new works, made for the festival. All events are free to attend. Click the links below for more on each event.

• November Saturday 20th 2021 : Swiss Poetry in Collaboration at Rich Mix, London With Clea Chopard, Rolf Hermann, Laura Accerboni, Baptiste Gaillard et al, Swiss poets collaborate with British-based counterparts.

• November Tuesday 23rd 2021 : Norwegian Poetry in Collaboration at Open Ealing, London With Endre Ruset, Bjørn Vatne, Silje Ree, Jon Ståle Ritland et al, Norwegian poets collaborate with British-based counterparts.

• November Thursday 25th 2021 : Swedish Poetry in Collaboration at Town House, Kingston University - Freke Räihä, Pernilla Bergland, Kristian Carlsson et al, Swedish poets collaborate with British-based counterparts.

• November Saturday 27th 2021 : Slovenian Poetry in Collaboration / Iklectik Artlab, London Muanis Sinanovic, Jana Purtle Srdic, Nika Mahnic et al, Slovenian poets collaborate with British-based counterparts.

• November Monday 29th 2021 : Latvian Poetry in Collaboration / Goethe Institut Krišjānis Zeļģis, Jelena Glazova et al, Latvian poets collaborate with British-based counterparts.

• November Tuesday 30th 2021: Austrian Poetry in Collaboration / Austrian Cultural Forum, London - Cornelia Hülmbauer, Verena Dürr, Stefan Ellmer et al, Austrian poets collaborate with British-based counterparts.
  
  With further events to be announced, and more poets to be added, and details subject to change.

A note on : Letterpress and Poetry – the Printed Poetry Project talk

The Printed Poetry symposium is a series of events that mark the culmination of a Centre for Print Research (CFPR), UWE letterpress research project in collaboration with poet, writer and artist, SJ Fowler and letterpress printer and publisher Pat Randle (Nomad Letterpress). Fowler will discuss the project and the resulting publication in a keynote online presentation. In addition, nine poets, letterpress practitioners and publishers will present projects, publications and prints that evidence their relationship to the printed poem through their lived experience of creating words, images, performances etc. through this physical print process. https://cfpr.uwe.ac.uk/the-printed-poetry-symposium-october-2021/

“SJ Fowler's talk is on the potential of typesetting and letterpress printing as an active collaborative process for poets. Using the recent CFPR supported ‘Printed Poetry Project’ (an exchange between Fowler, Angie Butler at UWE and Pat Randle at Nomad Letterpress) as a case study, this mini lecture will explore how poetry might respond to the auspices of print, through serendipity, vernacular and process, and how it might alter and change when actively engaged in what letterpress can achieve. When often the relationship between poets and printers is one of commission, or separation, how might be we more innovatively integrate these two artforms, in order to produce original and innovative results?”

A note on: Pictures from Rhodes Art Park, Asemic Animals

Some pictures of the text-isles group show in Rhodes Art Park this past summer, where my Asemic Animals were on display. Thanks to Astra Papachristodoulou. https://www.poematlas.com/text-isles

A note on : The European Poetry Festival Manchester Camarade 2021

A brilliant night in Manchester at the Anthony Burgess Centre thanks to the support of the Manchester Poetry Library. I had the chance to ask dozens of writers in the north to come and read and we ended up with 18 poets in 9 pairs, presenting new collaborations on the night.

On a night that had been moved from the summer, and all that anticipation seemed to make it all the more appreciated, by me as much as anyone, that we were out performing again, reconnecting with people we hadn’t seen in a few years. I didn’t miss organising events necessarily, during the lockdowns, but I didn’t think anything of the events but they are great ways to spend an evening, my life even, bringing people together, making new work and this kind of happening most especially, where i get to travel, to see different parts of england, to receive people’s hospitality, is special.

This was all extra, it felt like, and the night had some really excellent works, on available to watch here https://www.europeanpoetryfestival.com/manchester21

Works from Patricia Farrell and Michael Egan, JT Welsch and Colin Herd, David Spittle and Stephen Sunderland, James Davies and Matt Dalby, Lydia Unsworth and Sarah Clare Conlon, Callie Michail and Scott Thurston, Ailsa Holland and David Gaffney, Robert Sheppard and Joanne Ashcroft. Big thanks to Martin Kratz, Ian Carrington and the many others who persevered to make this happen.

For my own collaboration I worked with my friend and longterm collaborator Tom Jenks. We have known each other for over a decade, written a book together and I think read together nearly 15 times. Our work was a ‘Guide to Post Pandemic Life’ with dogs, monkeys, bats, pangolins and sneezing.

Published : Mosaic poems in Mercurius

Brilliant to have these two forays into mosaic poetry published in Mercurius magazine. They are the result of a course at the London School of Mosaics in Gospel Oak. https://www.mercurius.one/home/mosaic-poems

Published : Poem in Slovakia anthology

Cool to have a new poem, written for this book in fact, in a new anthology, entitled Slovakia in Poems, edited by Eleni Cay and available here https://www.amazon.co.uk/Slovakia-Poems-Eleni-Cay/dp/1737405415/

My poems is about my last trip to Bratislava, going the dinosaur park there and other adventures, it has an epigraph by my collaborator zuzana husarova and has also been translated into Slovakian for the book, with an excerpt below.

A note on : Wolves in Chernobyl in Close Reading series

https://theimportanceofbeingaloof.tumblr.com/post/661526716783722496/close-reading-sj-fowler-wolves-in-chernobyl Nice of Charlie Baylis to include my poem Wolves in Chernobyl as part of his Close Reading series on his Importance of being aloof blog.

“What is it?

‘Wolves in Chernobyl’ is a mysterious, unrhymed poem in nine parts. There are no wolves in the poem, except for the title, yet there is a palpable sense of their presence, or the presence of something dangerous, lurking in the woods. This could be wolves ‘living in the goodness of our wood’, it could be a nefarious woodland spirit, it could be impending nuclear disaster, it could be something else entirely. The poem is dated April 26th 1986, the date of the calamitous safety test at the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant, but again the poem makes no direct reference to the disaster, only leaving sparse clues, for example ‘more firemen came up / complaining of vomiting and acute headaches’ and ‘I spit black spit’. The poem is preceded by an epigraph from the Ukrainian poet Vasyl Stus: ‘today is nothing. the future won’t come’, which ties together various hints that the events of the poem mostly take place before the effects of the nuclear accident, a peaceful moment where ‘life in the town goes on as normal’, before imminent destruction wreaks havoc……….

New course : Live Poetry and Performance, begins October 3rd

Live Poetries and Performance : an online course

Begins October 3rd 2021, running for 6 weeks. £200. All info here https://www.poembrut.com/courses

Sound Poetry, dance-poetry, video-poetry, theatre-poetry. Reading, recitation, installation, improvisation. Live collaboration and performance literature - Every live poem is a new work and poetry began in sound. Comprehensively reflecting upon an artform borne of liveness, this course will explore readings, recitation, installations, dramaturgy, sound poetry, dance, music, collaboration and performance - delving into what is possible when the poet mindfully explores the body, the voice, time, space, presence and absence, technology and the immutable idea of the audience.

Not a course aimed at extraverts, this course will be a practical, as well as conceptual, journey through what is often erroneously second in the poet's arsenal. What is the meaning of a poem spoken and heard, over written and the read? What are the possibilities of recorded or installed poems? Why has the 21st century seen a grand resurgence in performance literature, which takes live art as inspiration? We will examine the art of public reading, improvisation, talking performances, scripts and scores, as well as orchestration and planning.

This course will emphasise method. Participants will be sent a succinct document of resources once a week – ideas, examples, concepts, history, accompanied by exercises or prompts. Then, on a private blog-forum, responses - including written poems, video and audio recordings, images, scores, notations and performance plans - can be posted, with comments and feedback from all involved. When the course finishes, an event will consolidate that which everyone has produced.

Backed up with case studies on a swathe of brilliant poet performers or those who wrote with liveness in mind - from Samuel Beckett to Peter Handke, Marina Abramovic to Elaine Mitchener, Bob Cobbing to bp nichol, Maja Jantar to Jonathan Burrows and many many others- this course with expand the knowledge of those familiar with live events and offer strategies to those looking to tread boards.

Published : Text Isles anthology and exhibition

A beautifully made anthology alongside a group show in Greece, the Text Isles exhibition takes place 17-24 Sep 2021 in the Art Park Gallery / Archipoli, 85106 in Rhodes. Another remarkable, and actually pioneering, project from Poem Atlas and Astra Papachristodoulou. I certainly have not been involved in a bigger happening exploring textiles and poetry. https://www.poematlas.com/text-isles

My works for the show and the book are asemic animals. Creatures taking upon their bodies and the abstract poetry so important to my practise.

UK-based visual poets come together for a unique show at the first international exhibition of Poem Atlas

Poem Atlas presents its first international exhibition TEXT-ISLES, an exhibition of visual poetry featuring a range of innovative poets that examines materiality through the lens of text and textiles. Although wide-ranging in approach, the work produced as part of this show could be broadly characterised as a collection of material or sculptural poems, in which materiality, texture and movement are harnessed to retell, reimagine, and reorient our relationship to the environment and materials that stratify us.

You can purchase the anthology here. https://www.poematlas.com/text-isles-catalogue

A note on : The Printed Poetry Symposium, October 14th in Bristol

as part of the gifting to those attending the symposium, this gift bag has been printed with a poem i wrote specifically for the occasion and the bag! i love this kind of stuff. a minimalist masterpiece on my part, if i may say soo

I’m so happy to be involved in this and have had such a pleasure working with Angie Butler and Sarah Bodman at UWE. Amazing artists and human beings. My event on October 14th can be booked here, please do so https://store.uwe.ac.uk/conferences-and-events/centre-for-fine-print-research/conferences/printed-poetry-symposium-dropin-round-table-event

THE PRINTED POETRY SYMPOSIUM (OCTOBER 2021)

The Printed Poetry symposium is a series of events that mark the culmination of a Centre for Fine Print Research (CFPR), UWE letterpress research project in collaboration with poet, writer and artist, SJ Fowler and letterpress printer and publisher Pat Randle (Nomad Letterpress). Fowler will discuss the project and the resulting publication in a keynote online presentation.

In addition, nine poets, letterpress practitioners and publishers will present projects, publications and prints that evidence their relationship to the printed poem through their lived experience of creating words, images, performances etc. through this physical print process.

We will also hold a ‘live’ letterpress printing event at the Letterpress Collective, pop-up exhibitions at UWE library and an in-person meeting and pop-up exhibition at Arnolfini Bristol with some of the symposium presenters: to convene these communities and examine relationships between creative practitioners and the haptic production of the printed word within contemporary letterpress publishing activities. 

https://cfpr.uwe.ac.uk/the-printed-poetry-symposium-october-2021/

THURSDAY 14 OCTOBER: ticketed events, booking via UWE Online Shop – Drop-In Event & Roundtable Discussion

10.00a.m.–12 noon: Drop-in at The Letterpress Collective, Bristol: ‘live’ printing of Printed Poetry symposium keepsake 

2.00p.m.–4.30p.m. Arnolfini auditorium event: Roundtable discussion between symposium presenters and audience and pop-up exhibition of letterpress printed poetry works with Q&A, plus launch of publication by SJ Fowler from the Printed Poetry Project

SJ Fowler: Letterpress and Poetry – the Printed Poetry Project
A talk on the potential of typesetting and letterpress printing as an active collaborative process for poets. Using the recent CFPR supported ‘Printed Poetry Project’ (an exchange between Fowler, Angie Butler at UWE and Pat Randle at Nomad Letterpress) as a case study, this mini lecture will explore how poetry might respond to the auspices of print, through serendipity, vernacular and process, and how it might alter and change when actively engaged in what letterpress can achieve. When often the relationship between poets and printers is one of commission, or separation, how might be we more innovatively integrate these two artforms, in order to produce original and innovative results?