Publications

An Army of Lovers

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Juliana Spahr, David Buuck, City Lights Publishers.

A picaresque experimental novel, An Army of Lovers is the story of Demented Panda and Koki, two friends trying to be political poets in a time when poetry has lost its ability to effect social change. Their collaboration unleashes a torrent of consumerist excess that morphs into a Gitmo-style torture camp. Our heroes struggle to avoid complicity in the spectacle, yet are unable to overcome it through poetry. Instead it invades their bodies, manifesting itself through blisters and other symptoms, as the poets attempt to move beyond this impasse. Absurdist, fantastic, conceptual, Army is a novel for the Occupy generation.

summer stock

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Summer stock, lit journal for humanimals:

  • Tim Atkins
  • Sean Bonney
  • Paul Buck
  • Becky Cremin
  • Laura Foster Twigg
  • Steven Fowler/Tim Atkins
  • Chris Gutkind
  • Alan Hay
  • Jeff Hilson
  • Peter Jaeger
  • Tom Jenks
  • Antony John
  • Sarah Kelley
  • David Kelly
  • Fabian Macpherson
  • Sophie Mayer
  • Richard Parker
  • Jessica Pujol
  • Nat Raha
  • Connie Scozzaro
  • Marcus Slease
  • Linus Slug
  • James Wilkes
  • Steve Willey

Charlie Sayzz

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A twitter haiku poem made from Iraq/Afghanistan war reportage, intercut with quotes from cult leader Charles Manson, will tweet 1st Oct onwards from: https://twitter.com/CharlieSayzz

The poem draws comparisons between psychopathology and foreign policy.

“An American nightmare, with its condensation of Holy Spirit + Charles Manson + War + haiku (a Japanese form that could recall of course another war)… Another voice among the voices, a way to explore trauma… Poetry should do this.” (Steve Giasson)

Charlie Sayzz is constructed from incorrect 18-syllable haiku, to be transmitted one per day for the next year. The haiku is a much-abused and appropriated short (17-syllable) Japanese form, often meditative and peaceful. It is chosen here for its very in-appropriateness as a vehicle for war poetry. And yet under the placid surface, haiku surely is angry, because it is now such a colonised poetry. The extra syllable in these ‘bad’ haiku is to create dissonance (in old numerology, 9 is the number of aggression; 18 syllables = 1+8 = 9).

The poem was devised by Philip Davenport and co-written by him with Richard Barrett, Steve Giasson, Tom Jenks, Michael Leong, copland smith and Steve Waling.  Tom Jenks programmed the twitter feed and shaped many of the verses as visual poems.

This project is a parallel to Davenport’s novel Charlie Says (2013)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Charlie-Says-ebook/dp/B00DDU1R6A

 

Poetics titles from Litteraria Pragensia on Kindle

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CROSSROADS POETICS
by Michel Delville
Bringing together readings of Virgil Thomson, Gertrude Stein, Max Jacob, Louis Feuillade, Rosmarie Waldrop, Frank Zappa, Bill Viola and Pierre Alechinsky, this book attempts to delineate the possibility of a truly transversal poetics, one which creates a space for a reconsideration of contemporary poetics while navigating the complex interactions between the theory and practice.
COMPLICITIES: British Poetry 1945-2007
eds. Sam Ladkin & Robin Purves, with Thomas Day, Keston Sutherland, Alizon Brunning, Robin Purves, J.H. Prynne, Bruce Stewart, D.S. Marriott, Stephen Thomson, Craig Dworkin, Sophie Read, Sara Crangle, Malcolm Phillips, Tom Jones, Josh Robinson, Sam Ladkin, Jennifer Cooke, Ian Patterson.
AVANT-POST: The Avant-Garde under “Post-” Conditions
ed. Louis Armand, with Johanna Drucker, Michael S. Begnal, Lisa Jarnot, Ann Vickery, Christian Bök, Robert Archambeau, Mairead Byrne, R.M. Berry, Trey Strecker, Keston Sutherland, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Robert Sheppard, Bonita Rhoads, Vadim Erent, Laurent Milesi, Esther Milne.
HIDDEN AGENDAS: Unreported Poetics
ed. Louis Armand, with Ali Alizadeh, Livio Beloi, Jeremy Davies, Stephan Delbos, Michel Delville, Johanna Drucker, Michael Farrel, Allen Fisher, D.J. Huppatz, Vincent Katz, Stephen Muecke, Jena Osman, Michael Rothenberg, Lou Rowan, Kyle Schlesinger, Robert Shepperd, Stephanie Strickland, John Wilkinson.

New from Crater Press

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Crater Press is pleased to announce a Crater pamphlet by Buffalo letterpress buffalo Richard Owens; nine stanzas of ‘Turncoat’ in an attractive articulated broad-but-thin-side arrangement. Anyone who knows Richard Owens will suspect that this will be the real deal and it is the real deal. Two colour; different modes; handprinted, unusual folding, 36 lines of A* poetry.

Alison Gibb – Silent Diagrams

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silent diagrams cover(1)

Silent Diagrams is a series of pencil drawing over a single poem. The drawings document my process of visualizing poetic activity to create diagrams, which illustrate and generates spaces for live performance.  The diagrams were originated during the development of Thus in the crossing, a poetic dance performance in collaboration with choreographer Elaine Thomas. Out now on Knives, Forks and Spoons.

 

 

Charlie Says: Philip Davenport

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Charlie

Set in late-1960s Los Angeles, Charlie Says retells an  apocryphal story: that cult leader Charles Manson auditioned for the pop TV show The Monkees. In this novel, he gets the part.

 Davenport’s work often moves between ‘low’ and high’ literatures – converting porn, missing person adverts, war journalism into poetry. He has recently edited the poetry/text art anthology THE DARK WOULD (Richard Long, Tacita Dean, Ron Silliman, Jenny Holzer et al). Charlie Says adopts the skin of a pulp thriller while eroding the content.
The book spills from its traditional boundaries to include material hidden on the internet and a forthcoming twitter feed.
Davenport: “The Manson/Monkees mashup resonated with me – the juxtaposition of an idea of innocence with extreme violence. I started reading around the subject, watching documentaries about Manson and the late 1960s in West Coast America. The wildness of Manson’s speech caught my ear, the biblical cadence and his traces of hillbilly. One night I started writing him and the voice came clean and clear, like a whisper down a phone line. I called him Charlie X and let him loose to play in the Los Angeles of my imagination, the place I used to escape to via TV. Ironically, the more I wrote the more LA was inflected with Belfast, the place I grew up near. It is always burning and graffitied, prowled by young soldiers and by skinny old men, the shop signs are hand-painted and the Coca Cola ads are from the 1950s and everywhere is unease. This is the world that Charlie recounts and it’s where he hunts, looking for opportunities and weakness.”

Author Biography

Philip Davenport has worked as a poet, journalist, copywriter and dishwasher. His first  book Imaginary Missing People was published by experimental UK publisher Writers’ Forum in 1999. His short story collection All About Evil was The Big Issue magazine Book of the Week.Charlie Says is his debut novel. He has recently edited THE DARK WOULD language art anthology (2013).Transmission Print
A British small press that promotes and develops work by writers who dismantle the humdrum, often by embracing outsider viewpoints and language. Charlie Says continues this project: the novel breaks language and narrative conventions whilst holding to an overarching story shape. Davenport plays with the idea that the psychopath, like the private detective in previous eras, has become the shaman or seer through whose sensibilities we re-see our own world. This is a dark fable set in the Hollywood sunlight, alternately violent, sweet, comedic. For more information, author interviews, and full list of titles, go to our website http://www.transmissionprint.com 

The Claudius App V

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The issue includes fast poems by Christina Chalmers, Miles Champion, Jean Day,
William Fuller, Drew Gardner, Jeff Grunthaner,
Simon Jarvis, Purdey Kreiden, Frances Kruk,
Connie Scozzaro, Josh Stanley, and Dana Ward,
as well as a fiery splash by Ian Hatcher and Jacqueline Rigaut.
With negative reviews by Charleski Barrinsky (trans. Kentinski Johansky) on Soviet Conceptualism,
Kevin Cassem on Triple Canopy,
Emily Dorman on VanessaPlace Inc.,
Jaleh Mansoor on the Man-Child,
Georges Perec (trans. Rob Halpern) on the nouveau roman,
Giulio Pertile on John Ashbery,
Sarah Nicole Prickett on Rap Genius,
Erik Satie (trans. Jacqueline Rigaut) on critics,
and Oki Sogumi on boys,
as well as a dialogue between Joshua Clover and Keston Sutherland on poetry and revolution.
Plus 30 audio recordings by the above contributors, videos by Elena Gomez and Lanny Jordan Jackson, and a game,Titanichat, by Cecilia Corrigan and Ian Hatcher.

August 1, 2013: an anthology

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“On July 1st I invited a number of poets whose work I admire to contribute one of their poems to what would be a one-off online publication to go “live” on August 1st. I also asked them to pass on the same invitation to a poet or poets they knew and admired. My plan was for the resulting collection of poems to be entirely chosen by the poets themselves, and for there to be threads of friendship and mutual admiration linking the work. I’ve done no editing or selecting. Poems arrived, and they are here to read.” – Martin Stannard.

Read it here.

Albion – Stephen Emmerson

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The latest publication from Like This Press is Stephen Emmerson’s book-in-a-box, Albion.

Albion was generated at Inland Studios over 2 days in August during an installation organised by Stephen. Details of the original exhibition are available here: http://www.inlandstudios.co.uk/home/index.php?/projects/abion/

This installation was centred around the work of William Blake.

An 8 foot by 8 foot pentagram was placed on the floor with a typewriter at each of the 5 points. There were 5 visual poems derived from Blake’s writing, and a 30 minute soundtrack that was played on a loop. Participants were asked to channel Blake and let him write through them, but the event was also a way for the audiovisual landscape to be translated into text.

Each box contains:

1 x introduction in an envelope

4 x hand-ripped poster poems

6 x photos

1 x 6 track CD

44 x hand-torn loose leafed transcriptions

Boxes can be purchased for £9 direct from Like This Press: http://www.likethispress.co.uk/publications/stephenemmerson

Stephen Emmerson is the author ofTelegraphic Transcriptions (Dept Press),Poems found at the scene of a murder(Zimzalla), The Last Word (Very Small Kitchen), A never ending poem…(Zimzalla), Pharmacopoetics (An Apple Pie Edition), and No Ideas but in Things (Dark Windows Press). He lives in London. More information about Stephen is available on his website at: http://stephenemmerson.wordpress.com/.

Hix Eros I

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A new poetry reviews zine, edited by the Jo(e)(w)s Lindsay and Luna, with reviews of Jennifer Cooke, Frances Kruk, Francesca Lisette, Stephen Nelson, Holly Pester, Posie Rider, Keston Sutherland, Gareth Twose, Mike Wallace-Hadrill and Rachel Warriner.

Download it here.