A small tour of Japan, The Japan UK Poetry Exchange - 2025

Returning to Japan to collaborate and perform, following an extraordinary experiences in 2023 www.stevenjfowler.com/japan and 2024 www.stevenjfowler.com/japan24.

From a small travelogue, at the foot of this page below “this is the third time I have been able to go to Japan in three years, having spent two months of my life there in the last two years or so. It is because of the people I have met in Tokyo and Kyoto … there has not been a country with more kind and brilliant people showing enthusiasm for my kind of work and events…”

Event #4 – JUPME : Japan UK Poetry Music Exchange, a round robin improvisation with musicians : April 26th 2025 at Gekkasha Jinbocho

Completely remarkable event curated as a round robin by MIYA, with three poets and three musicians standing up and sitting down so everyone worked with everyone. I did a poem, an improvised talking poem and an improvised sound poem. MIYA I knew to be a brilliant musician, but to discover Hiromazu and Yuki, with their mastery of the Lute and guitar and Bewa respectively, it felt like a moment in time. To be in a jazz club in Tokyo, awaiting my next slot, watching Yoshi Hogyaku and Colin Herd too, it was inspiring.

The performances can be watched as a playlist here, recreating how they unfolded on the night. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWHupTedVeo&list=PL-JiSo03F53q9N7gOLJSA08NyyvX2ncJw

Event #3 – JUPE and ToPoJo at Ryozen Park Lounge : April 24th 2025

A chance to do solo sets surrounded by many Japanese poets who were both friends from years past and new to me, and curated by Silje Ree, in connection with the Tokyo Poetry Journal. I considered just reading new poems I had written on this trip but just before performing I decided to do an improvised talking performance. The intimacy of the space, and the timbre of the event made it both jarring for some and hopefully engaging for others. The conversation afterwards was animated.

Event #2 – Kyoto Camarade April Sunday 20th at the Uradera Gokurakuji Buddhist temple

fukudapero did an amazing job bringing together a rangey group of poets, monks, artists, film-makers, rappers and more for this third Kyoto Camarade, which was a full afternoon of fully realised works. People do not take the camarade lightly in Kyoto, all the pieces had a great deal of work in them, and the very unique environment of the temple right in the heart of Kyoto once again made it so atmospheric. The photos say more than I could as to the febrile feeling of the day.

Collaborating with fukudapero for a third time

A special collaboration, for the third time with my friend fukudapero, who is an anthropologist actively researching in East Africa while balancing teaching, family and poetry. We met early in the day, in the temple where we would perform and wrote poems on the gi’s we would each wear for the performance, which he had bought for us following his excellent idea that we do poetry judo. It was such a relaxing day, even when we were working out which throws suited the performance best. This is the nicest way to collaborate, workshop on the day, let it grow out of laughter and play, and then do it same day. In the end it turned out really nice I think, intimate and unique.

Event #1 – The third Japan UK Poetry Exchange Tokyo Camarade April Thursday 17th at Aoyama Gakuin University

Kicking off the third JUPE visit to Japan with a celebration at Aoyama University curated by Corey Wakeling. A literary event in tone, it featured some really interesting takes on translation alongside some proper conceptual performance. Colin Herd’s work with Ayaka Sato was a highlight, as was Corey’s reading himself with Kei Okamoto.

For my own part I worked with Satomi Tanaka, whom I met in 2024 and spent the day with the day before our performance. She had never performed in this way before and she doesn’t speak English fully, but we had a blast coming up with a playful live work, both in its poems and actions. Satomi is a rare manga bookseller and expert and amidst our gestures and app chats she took me around her shop in Jinbocho booktown. In the end, what I thought might be either violent or naff ended up being peculiar, gentle and curious. She was so happy, and so I was too.

Small Travelogue 2025

When I first started to be invited to perform outside of the UK, startled by the invites (that has not worn off), I wrote sometimes verbose travelogues. It was for me, I suppose. But now, feeling my writeups are probably a bit much, and that the granular details of travelling, exploring, creating with people in different places and discovering, going a little bit weird (as travel makes me) are best experienced without writing about them. I have got better at just being in them.

But this is the third time I have been able to go to Japan in three years, having spent two months of my life there in the last two years or so. It’s worth a note. It is because of the people I have met in Tokyo and Kyoto that I have been able to go back after the first successful project in 2023. There has not been a country with more kind and brilliant people showing enthusiasm for my kind of work and events. I have been back because they have asked me back and put me on.

Japan has been profound. For me as a person, but also for me to realise things about my work, and what lies at the core of me not mindfully taking it seriously, while going after it day to day. Playfulness, satire, collaboration, a particular way, and energy. What the Japanese call Genki Genki. Moreover the friendships I have built there have taught me much, about everything from improvisation to animism.

And before I leave it at that I’ll just say these trips have been marked by mass on foot exploration, across the two big cities of Japan. Over 120 miles on this trip, so says my pedometer, mostly without plans, just walking and looking around districts of Tokyo especially. Ueno, Nezu, Yanaka, Asakusa, Jinbocho, Ochanomizu, Sunamachi, Roppongi and more just names place names now not new to me. All the small backstreets connecting them, collecting and photoing aberrant language and visiting shrines. Up three small mountains and a lot of runs park to park. Konbinis, stomach, one pair of shoes, endless eggs, processions, smoke cleansing, tengus, monkeys, jonathan’s and denny’s and gusto’s and saizeriya’s, daisu and watts and seria, small bags, heavy coinage, whatsapp audio messages, tofu bars and cold coffee and 1000 c glass bottles, many beds, a small team. A remarkable place for me and to everyone I’ve spent time with there, foremost Colin Herd, I’m grateful.