The 122nd monthly episode of the podcast series “PoemTalk”—a discussion of Sean Bonney’s “Happiness” with Stephen Willey, Anna Strong Safford, and Luke Roberts.
Author: theotherroom
Crater – Ian Davidson reading
On the 20th of March at 19.30, upstairs at the Dog House pub in Kennington, SE11 6BY, Ian Davidson will read from his recent Crater pamphlet Gateshead and Back alongside readings by Caitlín Doherty, James Goodwin and Ed Luker. Come along!
It will be something of a belated launch for this:
Crater 39: September 2017. Ian Davidson’s Gateshead and Back, Volume II of the Tyne and Wear Poems. Three colour, risograph, 18pp., original photography by Lara Pearson, design by Vadim Gershman, £8 + p&p. (Run of 100)
The Tyne and Wear Poems are here and there and often both at the same time. They look different from over here and from over there. Volume 1 of the Tyne and Wear Poems was about getting to know the urban landscape of Newcastle and Volume 3 was about repeated journeys that wore down the moving figure and the thing moved through on repeated journeys over old familiar ground. Volume 2, Gateshead and Back, is about the many connections that the people of Gateshead might have around the world. It came together in a Tyneside flat in the Avenues, with a sink hole appearing just across the road. The poems and images say things about actual and imagined movement through the connections many people might have. Gateshead and Back enjoys mainly unstable ground.
Reading will entail a £5/£3 donation to venue costs.
10 years of if p then q
Another big night in the not too distant future from James Davies’ publishing house if p then q. Wang it in your diary.
European Poetry Festival
www.europeanpoetryfestival.com
April 5th to April 14th 2018
over 50 poets from 24 European nations
9 events in 10 days
THE EUROPEAN POETRY FESTIVAL 2018 BRINGS TOGETHER SOME OF THE FINEST LITERARY AND AVANT-GARDE POETS OF THIS GENERATION, TO LONDON AND ACROSS THE UK, TO COLLABORATE, PERFORM AND SHARE THE BRILLIANCE OF CONTEMPORARY EUROPEAN LITERATURE
Programme Click the event for further information : All events are free to attend
April Thursday 5th : European Poetry at Writers’ Centre Kingston : Rose Theatre
Opening the festival by the River Thames with readings from nearly a dozen European poets.
April Saturday 7th : The European Camarade : Rich Mix
The grand event of the festival. 30 poets in 15 pairs present brand new collaborations made for the night.
April Sunday 8th : Performance Literature & Sound Poetry : Parasol Unit
Celebrating innovation in live literature with new solo performances by a dozen of Europe’s most considerable avant-garde poets.
April Monday 9th : Lithuanian Poetry in collaboration : The Poetry Cafe
Lithuanian and British poets collaborate and share new works at the home of The Poetry Society in London, joined by many other festival poets.
April Tuesday 10th : Versopolis poets in focus : London Bookfair
Lithuanian and British poets celebrate the pan-European poetry platform and review, Versopolis.
April Wednesday 11th : Polyphonic at Romanian Cultural Institute
A multimedia poetry show celebrating the Centenary of Greater Romania with readings by ten of the most talented Romanian poets.
April Thursday 12th : Austrian Poetry in collaboration : Austrian Cultural Forum
Austrian and British poets collaborate and share new works just off Hyde Park in the heart of London, joined by many other festival poets
April Friday 13th : The European Camarade in Liverpool
The festival leaves London and presents a night of new collaborations between poets local to Liverpool and those visiting from across Europe.
April Saturday 14th : The European Camarade in Middlesbrough : MIMA
The festival closes in the North East of England, where once more European poets will present collaborations with their English counterparts, many local to the area.
Poets presenting at the festival in 2018 :
Max Hofler, Daniela Chana, Robert Prosser (Austria), Damir Sodan (Croatia), Tomas Pridal (Czech Republic), Helianne Kallio (Finland), Iris Colomb (France), Rike Scheffler, Dagmara Kraus (Germany), Theodoros Chiotis, Astra Papachristodoulou, Katerina Koulouri (Greece), Erik Lindner, Hannah van Binsbergen (Holland), Kinga Toth, Orsolya Fenyvesi, George Szirtes (Hungary), Ásta Fanney Sigurðardóttir (Iceland), Christodoulos Makris, Ailbhe Darcy (Ireland), Alessandro Burbank, Livia Franchini, Serena Braida, Giovanna Coppola (Italy), Sergej Timofejev, Inga Pizane (Latvia), Aušra Kaziliūnaitė, Marius Burokas, Giedrė Kazlauskaitė (Lithuania), Jon Ståle Ritland, Endre Ruset, Henriette Hjorthen Støren, Vilde Valerie Torset (Norway), Simona Nastac (Romania), Olga Kolesnikova (Russia), Colin Herd (Scotland), Ana Seferovic (Serbia), Martin Solotruk (Slovakia), Muanis Sinanovic (Slovenia), Daniele Pantano (Switzerland), Anastasia Mina (Cyprus) Harry Man, John Clegg, Jen Calleja, SJ Fowler, Helen Michael, Simon Pomery (UK) and more…
European Poetry Festival is curated by SJ Fowler
Chris McCabe – The Nevermore: In Search of the Lost Poets of Abney Park
The Nevermore:
In Search of the Lost Poets
of Abney Park
Wednesday 21st March 7.30pm
To celebrate World Poetry Day, Poet and writer Chris McCabe turns the focus of his ongoing project about the Magnificent Seven cemeteries to the natural non-conformist landscape for poets: Abney Park Cemetery. Author of In the Catacombs: A Summer Among the Dead Poets of West Norwood Cemetery and Cenotaph South: Mapping the Lost Poets of Nunhead CemeteryMcCabe will present accounts of the dead and read a mix of poems from the poets he’s discovered along his journey so far, including those buried in Abney Park. You’ll hear about the poet-couple George Linnaeus Banks and Isabella Varley Banks and Emily Bowes, whose final words were “I shall walk with him in white”. The event will end with a Q and A and a chance to buy McCabe’s cemetery books.
To be held inside Abney Park’s chapel.
Please arrive at the main gates on Stoke newington High St between 7 & 7.20pm
18yrs and over.
Tickets: Full £12 / Conc £10
Book here
info@abneypark.org
020 7275 7557
www.abneypark.org
Surrey Poetry Festival 2018
Early notice of this event which is organised by The Other Room’s James Davies, current Poet in Residence at the university. The day will feature a number of amazing poets. Get the date in your head now! Guildford is just 30 minutes from London Waterloo. More on where and how to buy tickets soon but should be around £5.
derek beaulieu in Leeds
As part of the INSIDE/OUT lecture series Derek Beaulieu delivers his talk, Making Nothing from Nothing.
14th March, Leeds Beckett University, 1.30-3
More details HERE
The Other Room tonight – Gardner, Hardy & Linklater
Summer Poetry School course with James Davies
Archiving Your Self Yourself: Quantified Self Studio
At a time in which we are archived by others, often through digital means, it seems more and more important to attempt to define ourselves – on our own terms – as individuals and as members of a diverse range of groups. Written attentively, poetry that archives the self is subversive and can present radically different narratives to those purported by digital and mass media. By using methods such as diaries and collation of information one can conduct a close examination of the self as it stands, now and then, to see how it fits into the bigger picture.
Read more about this short online course HERE
Contraband Live – David Miller’s Spiritual Letters
CONTRABAND LIVE – February 27th 2018
Contraband Live Launch of David Miller’s ‘Spiritual Letters’!!
With readings from Spiritual Letters by David Miller, April Fredrick, Steve Torrance and Matt Martin.
There will be more poetry and performance from Fran Lock, Michael Zand and Karen Sandhu.
A very exciting event!
Entry to the event is free and food is available from the venue.
Contraband Books and publications by other publishers will be on sale at our book stall. We look forward to seeing you there!
Monday 730-11pm | The Crown Tavern, 43 Clerkenwell Green, EC1R 0EG
Calum Gardner: a preview
Calum Gardner will perform at the next Other Room on Wednesday 21st February at The Castle Hotel, Oldham Street, Manchester, alongside Edmund Hardy and Jazmine Linklater. 7 PM start, free, as always. Here is Calum performing with another Other Room reader, John Goodby.
Calum Gardner is a poet, critic, editor of Zarf magazine, and teaches at the University of Leeds. Recent poems can be found in publications such as amberflora, 3:AM, Datableed, and Poetry Wales.
Edmund Hardy: a preview
Edmund Hardy will read at the next Other Room on Wednesday 21st February at The Castle Hotel, Oldham St., Manchester. Here he is with Camilla Nelson at last year’s Museum of Futures exhibition opening. The other readers are Jazmine Linklater and Calum Gardner. 7 PM start, free, as always.
Edmund Hardy is a poet and polemicist. His book Complex Crosses (2014) is an experimental work of philology and philosophy. He’s currently working on a novel called Motley Apostles.
Peter Barlow’s Cigarette #26
*Note the change of venue*
Facebook event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/151579125632226/
~
ZAYNEB ALLAK ~
grew up in Baghdad and Birmingham and has since lived and worked in several countries around the world. Her debut pamphlet, Keine Angst, was published by New Walk Editions in 2017. She has a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing at Nottingham Trent University and is currently a lecturer in Creative Writing at Edge Hill University.JAMES BYRNE ~
is a poet, editor and translator born in the UK in 1977. His most recent poetry collection is Everything that is Broken Up Dances, his debut collection in the United States in 2015. He is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Edge Hill University in England. Byrne was editor and co-founder of The Wolf magazine, and has edited or co-edited such collections as Bones Will Crow, the first anthology of contemporary Burmese poetry to be published in English (Arc, 2012); Voice Recognition: 21 Poets for the 21st Century (Bloodaxe, 2009), and Atlantic Drift: an Anthology of Poetry & Poetics, featuring 24 poets from the US/UK and Canada (Arc, 2017), with Robert Sheppard. He is the International Editor for Arc Publications and his poems have been translated into several languages including Arabic, Burmese and Chinese.
grew up in Baghdad and Birmingham and has since lived and worked in several countries around the world. Her debut pamphlet, Keine Angst, was published by New Walk Editions in 2017. She has a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing at Nottingham Trent University and is currently a lecturer in Creative Writing at Edge Hill University.JAMES BYRNE ~
is a poet, editor and translator born in the UK in 1977. His most recent poetry collection is Everything that is Broken Up Dances, his debut collection in the United States in 2015. He is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Edge Hill University in England. Byrne was editor and co-founder of The Wolf magazine, and has edited or co-edited such collections as Bones Will Crow, the first anthology of contemporary Burmese poetry to be published in English (Arc, 2012); Voice Recognition: 21 Poets for the 21st Century (Bloodaxe, 2009), and Atlantic Drift: an Anthology of Poetry & Poetics, featuring 24 poets from the US/UK and Canada (Arc, 2017), with Robert Sheppard. He is the International Editor for Arc Publications and his poems have been translated into several languages including Arabic, Burmese and Chinese.
The poet John Kinsella wrote: ‘James Byrne is a phenomenon and Blood/Sugar is astonishing. Byrne has a razor-sharp wit, an acute intellect and a superb facility with language. The poetry he writes is both culturally and intellectually ‘learned’, but also rhetorically and lyrically confident. He is a complete original.’
CAITLÍN DOHERTY ~
is a poet and scholar from Manchester. She lives in London and is finishing a PhD. Her work has been published in magazines including Materials, Hi Zero, the Paper Nautilus and her books are available from Tipped Press and Critical Documents. She is the poetry editor for Salvage: a Revolutionary Journal of Arts and Letters and she is working on her next book project for release in 2018.
PETER MANSON ~
lives in Glasgow. His books include Poems of Frank Rupture (Sancho Panza Press), English in Mallarmé (Blart Books), For the Good of Liars and Adjunct: an Undigest (both from Barque Press) and Between Cup and Lip (Miami University Press, Ohio). Miami UP also publish his book of translations, Stéphane Mallarmé: The Poems in Verse. Recent publications include the pamphlet Factitious Airs (Zarf Books) and a double-sided broadside shared with Linus Slug. SONNOTS for Griffiths, a book of collaborations with Mendoza, is due soon from Materials. See petermanson.wordpress.com for more details.
Jazmine Linklater: a preview
Jazz will read at the next Other Room on 21st February, alongside Calum Gardner and Edmund Hardy. Here she is reading her collaboration with Jessica Tillings on last year’s North by North-West Poetry Tour.
Our event is at The Castle Hotel, Oldham Street, Manchester and starts at 7PM. Free entry, as always.
Jazmine Linklater lives and writes in Manchester. She has published two pamphlets, Toward Passion According (Zarf, 2017) and Découper, Coller (Dock Road Press, 2018).
Otoliths #48
Sheila E. Murphy, Douglas Barbour, Texas Fontanella, John M. Bennett, Diane Keys, Baron Geraldo, Mark Cunningham, Alyssa Trivett, Bill DiMichele, Jim Meirose, Guy R. Beining, Kyle Hemmings, Seth Howard, Anatoly Kudryavitsky, Cecelia Chapman, Jim Leftwich, Steve Dalachinsky, Magdalena Ball, Sanjeev Sethi, Lynn Strongin, AG Davis, David Lander, Lawrence Upton, Raymond Farr, Trivarna Hariharan, Clara B. Jones, Pete Spence, Jill Chan, Drew B. David, Jon Cone, Philip Byron Oakes, Karri Kokko, David Rushmer, Andrew Brenza, Marcello Diotallevi, Kathryn Hummel, Federico Federici, Mark Pirie, Diana Magallón, Laurent Grison, Jack Galmitz, Marilyn R. Rosenberg, Sacha Archer, Justin Sheen, Felino A. Soriano, David Baptiste Chirot, Alice Savona, Thriveni C. Mysore, Howie Good, Thomas M. Cassidy, Brandon Roy, Brandstifter, Rich Murphy, hiromi suzuki, gobscure, Joel Chace, Volodymyr Bilyk, Olivier Schopfer, Brendan Slater, Joe Balaz, John Levy, Tom Beckett, Lakey Comess, Clay Thistleton, Anne-Marie Jeanjean, Poornima Laxmeshwar, Penelope Weiss, Carey Scott Wilkerson, Thomas Fink, Maya D. Mason, M.J. Iuppa, Ivan Klein, mary c fogg, Tony Beyer, Jeff Bagato, Charles Wilkinson, J. Paul Dutterer, Jessie Janashek, Jeff Harrison, Louise Landes Levi, Joseph Salvatore Aversano, Mary Kasimor, Karen Greenbaum-Maya, Michael O’Brien, Linda M. Walker, Keith Nunes, Jesse Glass, Andrew Topel, Cheryl Penn, Richard Kostelanetz, Edward Kulemin, Karl Kempton, Ryan Scott, Emma Burgess, Katrinka Moore, Timothy Pilgrim, Marilyn Stablein, Seth Copeland, Vassilis Zambaras, Bob Heman, Brooks Lampe, Anwer Ghani, Chris Brown, J. D. Nelson, Jacqueline M. Pérez, Michael Brandonisio, Paul T. Lambert, & David Kjellin. Read it here.
The University Camarade
The University Camarade III
February Saturday 10th 2018 – 7.30pm – Free Entrance
Venue 2 : Rich Mix Arts Centre (35-47 Bethnal Green Rd, London E1 6LA)
www.theenemiesproject.com/unicamaradeThe University Camarade is an initiative that asks writing students from different Universities across the UK to collaborate on short new works of poetry or text, for performance. It is an opportunity for young writers to expand their practise, knowledge and networks, and the project takes a stand against purported factionalism in higher education. The innovative collaborative methodology also allows students to include experimentation early in their writing careers, and perform to a large audience.
February Saturday 10th 2018 – 7.30pm – Free Entrance
Venue 2 : Rich Mix Arts Centre (35-47 Bethnal Green Rd, London E1 6LA)
www.theenemiesproject.com/unicamaradeThe University Camarade is an initiative that asks writing students from different Universities across the UK to collaborate on short new works of poetry or text, for performance. It is an opportunity for young writers to expand their practise, knowledge and networks, and the project takes a stand against purported factionalism in higher education. The innovative collaborative methodology also allows students to include experimentation early in their writing careers, and perform to a large audience.
YVONNE LITSCHEL & BRONTE PLEASANTS
JAMIE TOY & EDWIN STEVENS
SILJE REE & HANNAH SUMMERS
EMILY MOYCE & JAI BROUGH
AMJAD HAJYASSIN & LUCY CASH
JENNAH FLETCHER & JOE SHAW
SVETLANA ONYE & HEATHER O’DONNELL
TOM YOUNG & MICHAEL SUTTON
VILDE TORSET & ABBY KNOWLES
KIERAN WYATT & DAVID YEOMANS
JAMIE TOY & EDWIN STEVENS
SILJE REE & HANNAH SUMMERS
EMILY MOYCE & JAI BROUGH
AMJAD HAJYASSIN & LUCY CASH
JENNAH FLETCHER & JOE SHAW
SVETLANA ONYE & HEATHER O’DONNELL
TOM YOUNG & MICHAEL SUTTON
VILDE TORSET & ABBY KNOWLES
KIERAN WYATT & DAVID YEOMANS
The Uni Camarade III is supported by Kingston University, Edge Hill University, Glasgow University and York St John. It is curated by SJ Fowler as a Writers’ Centre Kingston project.
Animal Waste
Animal Waste : The second of a set of five cinema-poetic collaborations with the artist-filmmaker Joshua Alexander.
Animal Waste spreads itself over the lands of London which seem to have inspired a re-understanding of the city’s literary and psychological history, from Limehouse to Wapping, Rotherhithe to Ratcliff. Mutely nodding to this profound and now taken for granted reexamination of these once were slums, Animal Waste sets itself against the confident and touristic glean of that history, instead aligning itself with the suffering sediment of the actual past. Shot around Wellclose Sq and Hawksmoor’s St Anne’s, and hiding from the Thames, the film evokes Falk, Swedenborg, Linneaus in all their intelligent menace.
‘Manichean visions revive disputed and despoiled London ground. Poetry in light and stone’ Iain Sinclair
The animal films explore the particular, baffled and morbid character of English attitudes to mortality, along with the specific influence of place and conformity on the quintessentially English deferral of emotion and melodrama. The films aim to capture the ambiguous menace of an often accidentally humorous resolve, manner, apology and understatement so prevalent in the English character.
Supported by the Eurimages TEM grant and Arts Council England via The Enemies Project.
Writing and movement – a residential workshop
4th – 9th June
Au Brana Centre, Lectoure, France
Led by OBRA with writer Lucy Burnett
OBRA Theatre Co and Carcanet poet Lucy Burnett are seeking passionate and interested artists who wish to participate in a 6 day research session at the Au Brana Centre in Southern France led by psychophysical theatre practitioners Kate and Oliviero Papi of OBRA and poet / writer / creative writing tutor Lucy Burnett.
The session will draw on, and further, the innovative, cutting-edge practice-led research which OBRA and Lucy have been developing into Writing from the Body as primary source. This involves exploring how language can be generated in response to a body in motion, as well as using one’s own body as the physical and intellectual stimulus.
We seek writers interested in engaging with their own physicality within their writing practice, and performers who wish to develop their capacity to generate their own texts. There are no set expectations as to what form the writing might take, nor does one need to be or become a dancer in order to engage with the physical practice proposed. Instead, the creative team will explore, share and hopefully expand the pedagogical structures under development, in collaboration with participants. This will be a period of active research to explore the potential extrinsic and intrinsic relationships between physical expression, movement and writing as creative processes.
OBRA’s practice, grounded in psycho-physical principles, is rooted within the body and mind working in harmony with the imagination. Lucy’s writing is particularly interested in the processes of emergence, re-emergence and change, within shifting textual, bodily and physical contexts.
The session will take place at the Au Brana Centre, a formerly ruined farm now transformed into a tranquil and focused creative environment with onsite accommodation provided.
The fee for this session will be €300 which includes food and accommodation at Au Brana, and a minimum of 6 hours training per day for 6 days. This will be on a first come first served basis, with a maximum of 15 participants, and to secure a place you will need to pay a non-refundable deposit of €100 (refunded if we cancel). Successful applicants will need to cover their own travel expenses, arriving at Au Brana 3rd June and departing 10th June.
To apply for the session, please return a completed application form to info@aubrana.com. OBRAWORKSHOP SAPP
Any enquiries please contact Oliviero at; info@aubrana.com or for more info see http://www.obratheatre.co/ workshops/
Eric Mottram Conference
The Council Room, 2nd Floor, King’s College London, Strand Building on Monday 23 April. This Conference is to celebrate the man and his archive. Draft programme below. Contact valerie.soar@btinternet.com for further details:
Eric Mottram Remembered: “poet, professor and cultural firebrand”. Monday 23 April, 2018.
A conference sponsored by the Archives Department at King’s College London, WC2R 2LS, with an exhibition of manuscripts, books and digital material. Held in the Council Room, 2nd floor of the Strand Building
10.00 am: Coffee, tea and biscuits in the Council Room, 2nd Floor, King’s College, Strand.
10.30: Welcome by Geoffrey Browell, followed by an introduction to the Mottram papers and her recent work on them by Valerie Soar: Eric, the man and his archive.
11.00: Allen Fisher on Eric Mottram and Painting
11.45: Dale Carter on Eric Mottram and Politics
12.30 pm: Sandwich lunch provided by Archives in the Council Room, and a chance to see some material from Eric Mottram’s Archive.
1.30: Juha Virtanen – The legacy of the British Poetry Revival and the Materiality of Archives
2.10: Panel discussion: the legacy of Eric Mottram, Ken Edwards, Peter Middleton, Gavin Selerie, Robert Hampson, Peter Barry, and Mike Hrebeniak (tbc). Chaired by Clive Bush.
2.45: Questions from the audience.
3.05: Coffee, tea and biscuits.
3.20: Audio and visual recordings by Will Rowe (title tbc) and John Whiting
4.15: Pierre Joris – A Transatlantic Turbine: Eric Mottram in the World Today (tbc)
5.pm: Close, and a further chance to see some material from Eric Mottram’s archive
The audience is invited to go to the exhibition of Mottram books and manuscripts led by Geoffrey Browell who will be happy to answer questions.
Adjacent Pineapple issue 3
New issue of the continually excellent online magazine featuring Other Roomees James Davies, Richard Barrett, Iain Morrison, Nat Raha, Steve Waling and many more.
Check it out HERE
otherroom.org 