Publications

zimZalla object 017: Pomegranates in the Oak

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zimZalla object 017 is Pomegranates in the Oak, a sound collage CD with discovered and manipulated text by Alison Gibb and text and sound treatments by Tom Jenks.

The object’s primary text is Virginia Andrews’ 1979 novel Flowers in the Attic, from which Gibb, using instinctive selection and placement, has created a second text. This second text was then replicated sonically using spoken recordings by Gibb of the relevant sections of the original novel, with selected words and phrases isolated and spliced in order, preserving uneven and disjunctive patterns of tone and stress. This sonic collage was then fed through speech to text software to create a third, shadow text, which was recorded and added as a layer to the first track. Finally, a selection of samples, suggested by the hybrid text, were added, with some distortion. More at the zimZalla site.

New Scottish poets

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“It’s difficult to say exactly what’s going on in Scottish poetry right now,” writes Sandra Alland. “But it’s definitely something exciting.” Alland convenes nine poets in Scotland, most of whom live in Glasgow or Edinburgh, to suggest a “recent surge” in work being done in flourishing hybrid forms and experimentation in this increasingly independent region.”

Jacket 2 magazine feature on new Scottish poetry, including work by Other Room readers Colin Herd and nick-e melville.

Maintenant #94: Pierre Joris

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Via Steven Fowler:

“There are figures in poetry whose contribution to the understanding of the medium is so immense it cannot be properly appreciated when they are still practising their thought as a poet, let alone as also a prolific critic, anthologist, teacher and theorist. All the more is this true when their work is as enormous, and relentless, as it is subtle, generous and deft. Even more so again when they have been at this work for over forty five years. Who would hope to engage more in the roots and edges of poetics in one lifetime than Pierre Joris has over his? He has published over forty books. He has translated hundreds of poets, not just offering new understandings of their work in his translations, but often resurrecting, if not creating, an appreciation in the Western World. He is as exceptional a polylingual translator as the late 20th century has seen and is inarguably seminal in his own work for the revelation of multi-lingual writing amongst other things. He has taught thousands of students, never once comprising the fundamentally ethical, rigorous and complex ideas behind his work and his understanding of poetry in general. He has written numerous articles on his contemporaries, and having lived across Europe, Africa and the United States, those who have constituted his peers are an exceptionally plentiful group. Add onto that his editorial co-presiding over one of the most important anthologies ever conceived, the poems for the millenium. His dexterity and depth of understanding is matched only by his generosity, and the immense legacy he has already cemented. It is a great pleasure, in our 94th edition, to introduce our first Luxembourger poet, by birth, who is rather obviously, a citizen of everywhere and nowhere.
http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/maintenant-94-pierre-joris/

Pierre was kind enough to allow us to publish four poems alongside the interview.

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/notes-on-solon-other-poems/

“

The Salt Companion to Charles Bernstein

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The Salt Companion to Charles Bernstein presents scholarship on one of the U.S.’s best living innovative poets. Scholars explore major themes in his work, and poets present pieces inspired by his poetry. The book is intended for both scholars looking for informed critical insight into Bernstein’s work as well as for students to examine his work.

The scholarship covers many of his major pieces and genres, like sound, stage, and poetry. The authors write about his main themes and influences and give insight into some of the major poetry ideas currently being debated in the U.S., such as the nature and future of experimental poetry, the influences on contemporary poetry, the politics of poetry, and wide variety of techniques currently being used.

This book is valuable to individuals interested in poetry and libraries trying to stay abreast of the most important recent literary criticism/currents.

More at the Salt site.

Catechism: Poems for Pussy Riot

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CATECHISM: POEMS FOR PUSSY RIOT, edited by Mark Burnhope, Sarah Crewe & Sophie Mayer, is out now on PEN.  ePUB, Kindle and PDF versions are available here. The book is distributed on the ‘Pay What You Think It’s Worth’ model popularised by Radiohead and others. £5 is recommended, but any amount is welcome. All revenue will go to the Pussy Riot Legal fund, and the English PEN Writers at Risk Programme.

THE LAST WARD by STEPHEN EMMERSON

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The Last Ward is a series of 6 A3 posters and a 6 track CD. Each track title corresponds with one of the visual poem titles. They should be considered part of the same poem, working symbiotically rather than responding to one another.

1. polygun
2. speech is written in capitals
3. time runs backwards as well as forwards and will one day meet
4. pylons
5. voices in radiator falling through sink
6. you are not a concept i am familiar with

Read more about it and buy a copy here.

David Berridge: Turf

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Out now from Nikolai Duffy’s Like This press, TURF explores relations of poets and natural history, both in the field and amongst books. Three handbooks – A Pedagogy of Grasses, Understanding Glaciers, and Bird Song for Dogs – provide basic orientation and identification skills, whilst notebooks and memos offer histories of Anglo-American poetry in which the geographer Carl Sauer and botanists Agnes Arber and Edgar Anderson are fellow travelers with poets including Charles Olson, Jonathan Williams and Lorine Niedecker. Throughout, Dürer’s image of The Great Turf is found-icon for this book-in-a-box chorale “Of [SODS] of [SODS] [SODS].”

Each box is hand-stamped and comprises three A5 pamphlets, one A6 essay and one A6 series of notes, together with a postcard of Albrecht Dürer’s 1503 drawing, ‘Great Turf.’ Each item is hand-torn and hand-torn and printed on heavyweight vellum-laid cream paper; each individual cover is hand-stamped.

Read a sample here

hand-bound, with hand-torn pages and hand-printed covers

card backs and paper

140pp

September 2012

Copies can be purchased here. Free postage and packing on all orders.

David Berridge is a writer based in London. He curates VerySmallKitchen (http://verysmallkitchen.com/) and was recently writer in residence at X Marks the Bökship, where he researched the use of scripts and scenography in contemporary art writing. He is the author of Lemonade (LemonMelon), P.Z.T.C (Knives Forks and Spoons Press), BLACK GARDENS (The Red Ceilings Press) and The Moth is Moth This Money Night Moth (Knives Forks and Spoons Press).

Click here to watch an interview with David by The Other Room.

Based in Manchester, Like This is an independent press committed to publishing high quality and beautifully designed books that do things just a little bit differently. Currently we specialise in publishing handmade pamphlets and limited edition books-in-boxes. More information about the press can be found here.

Paula Claire: Going for Gold

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Limited Edition 50 Hand Numbered Copies Published 1 Sept 2012. Introduction: Mirella Bentivoglio. Essays:Scott Thurston; Geraldene Holt. Celebrating a site-specific Performance in the Orchard
Tremough Manor Campus 2.20pm 2 September at the ENVIRONMENTAL UTTERANCE CONFERENCE, University College Falmouth, Cornwall.

Part Two: Catalogue 3: Poems 2001-2011.

Enquiries about the publications to info@paulaclaire.com