Events

Handmade at Futuresonic

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As part of the annual Manchester smorgasbord arts and technology festival that is Future Everything innovative poetry publishers if p then q and zimZalla will have stalls at the event Handmade which includes a fanzine and small press fair.

Handmade is FutureEverything’s interactive craft fair exploring the intersection between craft and digital technology – a forum for crafters, hackers and innovators to share ideas and practice with the maker community and the public.

Handmade brings the dialogue around the intersection of craft and digital culture to life, in one of Manchester’s prime heritage locations. Artists working in the areas of craft and digital technology display their work in an interactive craft fair designed to encourage visitors to create their own DIY artworks.

Saturday 19 May 2012, 10am-5pm Victoria Baths, Hathersage Rd, Manchester £2. Free to conference ticket holders.

LINK

Re-Word – mostly from the mainland

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Performances of poetry and drama in translation, together with other local and European poets and translators.

Tuesday 22 May, 7.30-9.30 pm, Lloyds Upstairs, Lloyds Hotel, 617 Wilbraham Road, Chorlton, Manchester.

Provisional programme:

Issa haiku (Japanese) – Wilhelm Wetterhoff

Four contemporary Romanian poets – Daniel Puia-Dumitrescu (with Judy Kendall)

Poetry in Polish – Scott Thurston

Anna Szabo poems (Hungarian) – Szilvi Naray-Davey (with Judy Kendall)

INTERVAL 8.15-8.40

Hungarian drama – Szilvi Naray-Davey (with Judy Kendall)

Poetry in German – Daniele Pantano

Walloon poems from ‘A Translated Man’ (Belgian poet Rene Van Valckenborch) – Robert Sheppard

Contemporary English haiku and tanka by Sheila Butterworth, Martin Lucas, Stuart Quine, Fred Schofield, Ian Storr translated into Swedish, Finnish and Romanian – Daniel P-D, Wilhelm W, Martin Lucas/Judy Kendall

Contemporary Poetry and Source Conference

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18th May 2012 – 20th May 2012 at Plymouth University.

“This conference aims to explore the use of source material in contemporary poetry. The term ‘source’ should be given a wide remit, incorporating ‘origin’, ‘subject’ and ‘method’. Contemporary poetry, here, refers to writers working post – 1950, but of course thier sources may well be historical. We invite single author studies as well as papers which speak to the sources which are defining our poetic zeitgeist; we also invite creative practitioners to explore their own sources with a framework or context. Some topics for panels include: visual arts, music, nature, the personal, the impersonal, found material, the documentary, the trans-Atlantic exchange, influence, language, literature, biography, history, politics, philosophy and translations. Papers on or inspired by the work of our plenary speakers are very welcome.”

Includes a paper by Mark Leahy on Opposable Dumbs by Other Room reader Tina Darragh. You can watch part one of Tina’s reading below and find the other parts here.

Shearsman Reading: Laurie Duggan & Paul A. Green

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Laurie Duggan & Paul A. Green will be officially launching their new Shearsman titles: The Pursuit of Happiness and The Gestaltbunker, respectively. Also being launched on the evening is The Complete Poems of César Vallejo, translated by Michael Smith & Valentino Gianuzzi. There will be a short reading by Valentino Gianuzzi and Tony Frazer from the volume. Click on the covers for more information.

The reading venue is:
Swedenborg Hall
Swedenborg House
20/21 Bloomsbury Way
London WC1A 2TH

Admission free.

The entrance is around the corner on Barter Street. Closest Tube Stations: Holborn (Central & Piccadilly Lines : 4 mins’ walk), Tottenham Court Road (Central & Northern Lines: 6 mins), Covent Garden (Piccadilly Line: 10 mins). Several buses stop a few yards from the Hall. There is an underground carpark close by, beneath Bloomsbury Square. Disabled access is available, but please let us know in advance if it should be required.

Further details here of the venue:

http://www.shearsman.com/pages/editorial/readings.html

 

Poems For Many Voices

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Thursday 7 June, 1.00-2.00pm

St Michael at the North Gate , Cornmarket, central OXFORD

Join Oxford poet Paula Claire in a communal performance of poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins, Bob Cobbing and herself that she has arranged for groups of interactive voices, part of her Dreaming Spires Online initiative. Free admission, family friendly.

This is part of OXFRINGE 2012

Tony Lopez: Sounds New Poetry Festival

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Recent Other Room reader Tony Lopez is reading with Steve Collis at this year’s Sounds New Poetry Festival in Canterbury. Details below:

Wednesday 9th May 6pm, Peter Brown Room, Darwin College, University of Kent.
Reading: Found Text

Working with the idea of the found text, Steve Collis and Tony Lopez present poems that explore borrowing and appropriation in art. Like John Tavener in The Veil of the Temple, Collis and Lopez work with and through mixed sources to open the possibilities of collective expression.

The Future of Poetry: UCL – French Embassy

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9 May 2012, 6pm, followed by reception.
Gustave Tuck Lecture Theatre, UCL Main Building, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT.

The massive growth in creative writing courses in recent years has meant that there are probably more practicing poets at work now than ever before. Yet the position of poetry in relation to the public sphere at large seems to grow increasingly opaque. Is poetry merely a minority leisure activity, or can it still claim to be, as it was for Milton and Wordsworth, a means of understanding the world unrivalled both in its scope and its complexity? With so many new media changing the ways in which we produce and consume texts of all kinds, what is the future of poetry?

Participants include Other Room reader Keston Sutherland. More at the UCL site.

Addition to June line-up

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Peter Jaeger will be our third performer at our June 12th reading. Please note that this will be at another new venue: The Castle on Oldham Street, Manchester, which we hope will be our home for the forseeable future. Please also note that 12th June is a Tuesday rather than our previously usual Wednesday. To help the next six weeks pass a little quicker, you can enjoy this film of Peter performing his collaboration with Marcus Slease at February’s Camarade II event at the Rich Mix in Bethnal Green, London.

Syntax: Coding for Writers 23rd and 30th June

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OPEN CALL FOR PRACTITIONERS to take part in this workshop opportunity FREE OF CHARGE at FACT in Liverpool.

This is practical and thorough opportunity aimed at strong, established writers who are willing to experiment. No experience of coding is necessary though.

There’s lots of rhetoric around the need for this kind of knowledge for writers in the contemporary environment, and Mercy and FACT are keen to support the long-term establishment of expertise in this area. We are also influenced by the presence of Re:dock’s network and others like it in Liverpool and Manchester, where artists are engaging with coding in a playful and open way.

CONTENT

Processing is a programming environment which allows for all kinds of automated functions – appropriating, generating and animating text, integrating online content into your poems – and also interactivity. The workshops will be run by Tom Schofield, who is an established practitioner, and very aware of the particular requirements of working with text and Processing. Examples of things you can build in Processing are too numerous to mention, suffice to say there are implications for showing work as installation, on-line publication, video and in performance. As well as making your own work with support from Tom, you develop a pretty good idea of the possibilities of collaboration with more experienced coders.

APPLY

To apply please send a short statement of interest, bio and links to your work. Applicants will be chosen on the basis of their ability to contribute to a network of strong writers seeking support each other in experimenting with digital poetics – so good writing, experience and aptitude for contributing to critical conversations, and established practice.

REQUIREMENTS

You must be available to attend the workshops on 10am-5pm Saturdays 23rd and 30th June.

Between these workshops you will be expected and supported by the course leader, to complete homework tasks, developing your own work with Processing.

The workshops are FREE, paid for by FACT’s Open Curate It programme, and represent a continuation of this experimental workshop we did with Re-dock at Madlab last year, which were funded by Ideastap.

There are limited travel bursaries available from Mercy, funded by an Arts Council England GFA award, please indicate if you would like to be considered for one of these.

For info and to apply please email nathan@mercyonline.co.uk

[application deadline 25th May]

LINK to Mercy for more details

Enchanted Labyrinth

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On Tuesday 1st May, Peter Philpott and Matt Martin will be reading at the Enchanted Labyrinth event series in Bishops Stortford, as part of the Stortfest music festival. The evening also features live music from Anna Scott, Bella Chipperfield, Lorna Blishen and Nick Crofts, plus an exhibition of visual art.

Venue: Coffee Corner, 49–53 South Street, Bishops Stortford CM23 3AG. Tickets are £15 and include a sumptuous two course meal. Advance booking is recommended, as space is limited – please ring Coffee Corner on (01279) 311072 to reserve a table. Starts 7.15pm.

WFN

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Via Gareth Twose:

“Writer’s Forum North is back in business running a Poetry Writing Workshop on Saturday, May 26th.  Anyone welcome.

If possible we would like people to bring two things: a poem or poems of their own;  & a poem (not their own) they either really love or hate.

As usual will be trying to offer constructive feedback and a few laughs.  It would really help if everyone could bring multiple photocopies of their poems, so everyone in the group can read them.

The session will run from 2-4pm .  And it’s in top floor at Madlab, Edge Street, in the Northern Quarter.”