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Twitters for a Lark

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If the right poets for the times don’t exist, then they have to be invented.

Twitters for a Lark: The Poetry of the European Union of Imaginary Authors

 is published by Shearsman Books at £9.99 and in available here:

Working in collaboration with a team of real writers, Robert Sheppard has created a lively and entertaining anthology of fictional European poets. There is no resultant ‘Europoem’, but a variety of styles that reflects the collaborative nature of the poems’ production, the richness of a continent. The works range from the comedic to the political, from the imaginatively sincere to the faux-autobiographical, from traditional lyricism to the experimental. Accompanied by biographical notes, the poets grow in vividness until they seem to possess lives of their own.

This collection marks a continuation of the work Sheppard ventriloquised through his creation, the fictional bilingual Belgian poet René Van Valckenborch, in A Translated Man (also available from Shearsman here: http://www.shearsman.com/ws-shop/product/4328-robert-sheppard-a-translated-man )

Although devised before the neologism ‘Brexit’ was spat across the bitter political divide, this sample of 28 poets of the EUOIA (European Union of Imaginary Authors) takes on new meanings in our contemporary world that is far from fictive, ‘fake news’ or not.

The collaborators are: Joanne Ashcroft, Alan Baker, James Byrne, Alys Conran, Kelvin Corcoran, Anamaría Crowe Serrano, Patricia Farrell, Allen Fisher, S. J. Fowler, Robert Hampson, Jeff Hilson, Tom Jenks, Frances Kruk, Rupert Loydell, Steve McCaffery, Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl, Sandeep Parmar, Simon Perril, Jèssica Pujol i Duran, Zoë Skoulding, Damir Šodan, Philip Terry, Scott Thurston.

“Twitters for a Lark heralds a new movement: the European Poetry Revival. It is a book that arrives like a new channel forged by collaborative poets, with all past ideals of state rolled up in an old five pound note. This illuminated sect of future Rimbauds lightens the island’s burden, the lights on their vessels burning like the tips of duty free cigarettes.” Chris McCabe

 

Equus Press / Minor Literature[s] / 3AM

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11th November at 19:00. Caravansérail, 5 Cheshire Street,  London, E2 6ED

An exciting evening of readings by contemporary experimental authors from Equus Press, Minor Literature[s] & 3:AM Magazine.

CONFIRMED READERS:
Louis Armand – author of eight novels and ten collections of poetry, most recently The Combinations (2016) and East Broadway Rundown (2015).

Daniela Cascella – her work is focused on sound, literature, and art, driven by a longstanding interest in the relationship between listening, reading, writing & translating.

Lara Alonso Corona – a freelance writer of noir, sci-fi and literary fiction. London via Gijón.

Juliet Jacques – author of a book on English avant-garde author Rayner Heppenstall for Dalkey Archive Press (2007), and a memoir entitled Trans (Verso Books, 2015).

Fernando Sdrigotti – a London-based Argentine writer and cultural critic. He is editor-in-chief of Minor Literature[s] and a contributing editor to Numéro Cinq and 3AM Magazine.

Richard Makin – a writer, poet and artist. His first trilogy of novels comprises Work (Great Works, 2007), Dwelling (Reality Street, 2011) and Mourning (Equus Press, 2015).

Richard Marshall – has been a contributing editor for the cultural magazine3ammagazine.com since 2001. He has published Philosophy at 3AM: Questions and Answers with 25 Top Philosophers (2014).

The highlight of the evening will be Daniela Cascella & Juliet Jacques launching Cascella’s brand-new book, Singed (Equus Press 2017).

Entry free of charge. Everyone welcome.
Equus Press: https://equuspress.wordpress.com/
Minor Literature[s]: https://minorliteratures.com/
3AM: http://www.3ammagazine.com/

National Creative Writing Graduate Fair

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From Comma Press…

The National Creative Writing Graduate Fair takes place on the 3rd November in Manchester, a day dedicated to emerging creative writers, from poets, to short story writers, to novelists. 

The Fair is all about giving writers practical and up-to-date advice on how to live, work, and succeed as a writer. Over the course of the day, you will attend panel sessions, talks and workshops about topics like digital innovations in publishing, choosing the correct form for your idea, and book publicity. Moreover, writers are given the opportunity to meet with two agents, and have a pitching session where they can present their work for on-the-spot feedback. 

You don’t have to be a university graduate to attend the fair, nor do you have to have had anything published. All you need to do is prepare two verbal pitches, in 2 of 10 genres. We cater to writers working in everything from commercial fiction to short stories, from poetry to historical fiction.

The programme includes ‘Next Generation’ poet and novelist Luke Kennard (keynote speaker), Betty Trask Award winning Irenosen Okojie, Jhalak Prize winning Jacob Ross, Bookseller Start Up of the Week Bookollective and leading writer’s magazine Mslexia. 

Head to the Grad Fair website for the full programme and more information about the day. Tickets are £40, or £35 when booked in a group of five. If you are in receipt of means-tested benefits, or a single parent, you can apply for a reduced fee place for £20.

Bookings close on Wednesday 25th October, so don’t miss out on securing your place.

Work Processing – A Forum for the Sharing of Live Practice

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Work Processing – A Forum for the Sharing of Live Practice

Work Processing is a day-long event open to postgraduate/early-career artist-practitioners and independent artists working in the arts and humanities. The focus of Work Processing is practice itself. It offers a space in which to explore practice in process, stepping aside from the perceived obligation to qualify practice in terms of traditional academic discourse, and shifting focus away from product-based conceptions of artistic endeavour. The event will showcase the work of artist-practitioners over the course of a day, encouraging practice to speak to practice, unmediated by verbal explication. It will conclude with a communal dinner in the performance space where food, ideas and responses can be shared, and we can explore the kinds of conversations a forum like this can generate without the formalities of an academic Q&A.

We are currently seeking proposals for 20 minute contributions in any live format, from any discipline. Incomplete and/or speculative works-in-progress are of particular interest, although any work that engages with the theme of “Work Processing” will be considered. The event will take place on the 1st of December 2017 at Chisenhale Dance Space, London. Chisenhale has a large performance space with lighting and sound rig, basic projection facilities, and the raw aesthetic appropriate to sharing all types of live work in development.

Participants are invited to submit a short description of their intended work, their institutional affiliation (if applicable) and projected technical requirements, as well as weblinks to any supporting materials (videos/recordings/text etc.) to:workprocessing2017@gmail.com by the 13th of October 2017.

This event is being organised by five interdisciplinary practice-based PhD candidates, supported by the TECHNE AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership.

workprocessing.wordpress.com

UK launches of Choreo-graphic Figures: Deviations from the Line

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The publication is conceived as a studio-laboratory in itself, drawing together critical reflections and experimental practices that focus on the how-ness  — the qualitative-processual, aesthetic-epistemological and ethico-empathetic dynamics — within shared artistic exploration, directing attention to an affective realm of forces and intensities existing before, between and beneath the more readable gestures of artistic practice. Cultivating sensitivity towards the barely perceptible micro-movements within the process of artistic ‘sense-making’ has wider structural — even political — implications at the level of the macro, encouraging the de-, re- and trans-figuring of our ways of being in the world, inviting new forms of relationality, sociality and solidarity. Hybrid of an artists’ book and research compendium, Choreo-graphic Figures: Deviations from the Line invokes action by operating as a score that can be activated by others, providing artists, theorists and creative practitioners with a modular toolkit of performative and notational approaches for future experimental play.

Based on original research and edited by Nikolaus Gansterer, Emma Cocker and Mariella Greil. With contributions by Alex Arteaga, Arno Böhler, Christine De Smedt, Catherine de Zegher, Christopher Dell, Gerhard Dirmoser, Karin Harrasser, Adrian Heathfield, Victor Jaschke, Simona Koch, Krassimira Kruschkova, Brandon LaBelle, Erin Manning, Dieter Mersch, Lilia Mestre, Werner Moebius, Alva Noë, Jeanette Pacher, Jörg Piringer, Helmut Ploebst, P.A. Skantze, Andreas Spiegl.

More details on the book here.
Sample pages here.
Buy the book here. 

12 + 14 November 2017

PERFORMANCE LECTURE & WORKSHOP at SIOBHAN DAVIES STUDIOS, LONDON

On Sunday 12 November 2017 Choreo-graphic Figures: Deviations from the Line will give a one day workshop (11:00 – 17:00) hosted by Independent Dance at Siobhan Davies Dance Studios, London, UK. Additionally, on Tuesday 14 November 2017, 19:00 – 20:30 Emma Cocker, Nikolaus Gansterer and Mariella Greil will present a performance lecture at the Crossing Borders Talks in the 2017 series at Independent Dance at Siobhan Davies Dance Studios, London, UK launching their recent publication Choreo-graphic Figures: Deviations from the Line.

Simon Taylor – Prospectus

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if p then q is very pleased to announce the publication of Prospectus by Simon Taylor.

prospectus sample

Part Cindy Sherman part HR, Prospectus is a beautiful square format book which consists of a selection of colour photographs and descriptive texts for that all important ‘about me’ page.

Prospectus front cover flattened

Simon Taylor is one half of Joy as Tiresome Vandalism whose works are the books aRb and Absolute Elsewhere and the card game What’s the Best? He has also designed book covers for if p then q and posters for The Other Room poetry series. A sketchbook of his work and images from Prospectus can be found at Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/discomoobs/

You can buy at the if p then q website – LINK

Ben Hickman’s If Bird published by Crater and launch

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Ben Hickman’s great little Crater booklet If Bird, Then Tree is now available through Lulu – it’s full colour, with a series of great paintings by Oliver Baggott created in response to Hickman’s poems: “If Bird, Then Tree sees birds as one of our most visible signs of connectedness. Less ‘about’ birds than written around them, the sequence explores the world birds find themselves in: the network of relations and conditions they move through, make up and, finally, are made of. If Bird, Then Tree seeks to identify and identify with a nature that capital constantly makes but insistently makes other.” It’ll be £12 and you can get it through the website now. Use this code at purchase and you should get a 15% discount: FWD15

http://www.craterpress.co.uk/

There’ll also be a London launch event with readings from this book and stuff from some other Crater and Craterish poets at Iklectik (Old Paradise Yard, 20 Carlisle Lane, London SE1 7LG) on the 11th of October at about 19.30. There’ll be readings and you’ll also be able to eye Oliver Baggott’s bird paintings.

Ben Hickman’s books include Later Britain (Oystercatcher, 2014) and the critical works John Ashbery and English Poetryand Crisis and the US Avant-Garde (Edinburgh University Press, 2012, 2015). He works at the University of Kent.

Vera Chok has performed her writing widely and has been published in Rising and Transect magazines and by The Brautigan Free Press and Brain Mill Press. A chapbook, scritch, was written in collaboration with Serena Braida and Gloria Sanders, and new work is on the way.

Robert Kiely is the author of How to Read (2017), Killing the Cop in your Head (2017), and Fionn ag aislingeacht (2014).

T. Peeps writes and performs collaboratively with themselves and other Peeps who are not themselves. Recent publications:Entro & Un-love Son-nots Gutteral (2017), the science of poetry • the poetry of science Linus Slug / Peter Manson broadside (2015), and Type Specimen: An Observant Guide To Linus Slug, Contraband, (2014). Collaborative performances include: Poem Factory and the Masque of Ninnies.

£5/£3 contribution

Adjacent Pineapple

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A new online magazine edited by Colin Herd.

Includes:

Chris McCabe – Two new titles

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Cenotaph South: Mapping the Poets of Nunhead Cemetery is now out in paperback. Penned in the Margins are offering a copy Francis Ives’ gorgeous map of the project (see below) with each copy of the book. This is available from the Penned site here

The Affairs of Dylan Thomas, a limited edition book of collages and visual poems, has just been published by Red Fox Press. The main sequence of poetry collage explores the obsession of critics with Dylan Thomas’s private life. This is available from the publisher’s website here 

Tim Allen – Under The Cliff Like out now from if p then q

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under cliff cover V3

Tim Allen’s latest book is out now from if p then q.

‘Under The Cliff Like’ is constructed from the ‘Title And First Line Index’ in the 1962 edition of ‘Granger’s Index To Poetry’ (Columbia University Press. U.S.A.) which was found in a junk shop. It was written in 1996. In alphabetical order all entries beginning with ‘Like’ are juxtaposed with the equivalent number of entries beginning with ‘Under’. There are no alterations other than elimination of commas and the capital letter of the juxtaposed line plus the insertion of full stops at the end of each pairing.

196 pages
£8.00 (£5.60 with discount until end September via the link below)

LINK

 

Canalchemy Nantgarw

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Nantgarw China Works Museum, Tyla Gwyn, CF15 7TB Nantgarw, Rhondda Cynon Taff. Saturday, September 23 at 2 PM.

Canalchemy at Nantgarw China Works Museum Saturday 23rd of September 2-4pm. Poetry performance and exhibition of the Canalchemy project so far: including live performances, as well as images and films of previous performances by Lyndon Davies, Rhys Trimble, Nia Polly Watts Davies, Chris Paul, Wanda O’Connor, John Maher, Julia Lewis, John Goodby, Mamta Sagar, Allen Fisher, Anthony Mellors and Steven Hitchins filmed on location at sites along the route of the Glamorganshire canal. Arrive before if you want a look around the china works.

 

Foreigners exhibition at Bury Art Gallery

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Foreigners
26 August – 18 November

This summer Bury Art Museum Director Tony Trehy will be curating an exhibition called Foreigners. In a time when borders are closing and foreigners are being treated as unwelcome, the exhibition will survey foreign contemporary artists to show culture is by definition open to ideas from abroad.

The show is not about immigration or refugees or a show about foreignness. It doesn’t romanticise the Foreign as Other. The Foreigners exhibition will be a cultural action that defies fear with hope and keeps open the conversation with foreigners.

Artists include Judas Arrieta, Marianne Eigenheer, Laurence Weiner, Tabita Rezaire, Derek Beaulieu, Rachel Defay-Liautard, Pavel Buchler, Jayne Dyer , Helmut Lemke, Dinu Li, Satomi Matoba, Riiko Sakkinen, Marton Koppany, Brigitte Jurack and Ulrich Rückriem.

Hi Zero #53

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26th September, 7.30 PM. The Hope & Ruin, 11-12 Queens Road, Brighton, BN1 3WA.

Hi Zero returns for another season. Number fifty-three, featuring a complete reading of Verity Spott and Timothy Thornton’s “Poems,” plus more to be announced.

TIMOTHY THORNTON & VERITY SPOTT

Timothy Thornton’s books of poetry include ‘Jocund Day’ (Mountain Press), ‘Working Together for a Safer London’ (Barque Press), and his poems have appeared in dozens of magazines and journals. He is a composer and musician, and lives in Brighton.

Verity Spott’s books include: ‘Gideon’ (Barque Press), ‘Balconette’ (Veer Books), ‘We Will Bury You’ (also Veer), ‘Trans* Manifestos’ (Shit Valley), ‘Three Poems’ (collab with Megan Alan – Sad Press), ‘Click Away Close Door Say’ (Contraband), ‘Effort to No’ (Iodine), and ‘Poems’ (with Timothy Thornton – Face Press). Work has appeared in Salvage, Prelude, Sundial, Tripwire, Cesura, The Assasin, Litmus, Clinic 4, Alba Londers 07, Romulan Soup Woman and No Prizes issues four and five. She lives in Brighton, where she co-organises the monthly Horseplay night of readings and performances.

Timothy Thornton and Verity Spott wrote ‘Poems’ together, which is published by the beautiful Face Press, and which will be read in its entirety on the night, and available to buy, eat, etc.

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LINDA STUPART

Linda Stupart is an artist, writer, and educator from Cape Town, South Africa, recently completing their PhD in the Art Department at Goldsmiths College with a project engaged in new considerations of objectification. They had a solo show at Arcadia Missa in March 2016, ‘A Dead Writer Exists in Words and Language is a Type of Virus,’ and recently launched their debut novella, ‘Virus,’ also at Arcadia Missa. Their work has been the focus of two solo exhibitions in Cape Town and has also recently been shown/performed at Matt’s Gallery, The Showroom, a.m. gallery, the ICA, Gasworks, and Guest Projects in London.

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MITCHEL PASS

Mitchael Pass is a poet and student of poetry at the University of Sussex.

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The usual music from a thing, books, a bar, etcetera. £3 on the door, upstairs at The Hope & Ruin, just down from the station on Queen’s Road, Brighton.

Accessibility information:

The Hope & Ruin has a stepped street entrace of approx. 10-15cm, and two flights of stairs from the pub level to the venue on the first floor. There is a wheelchair accessible gender nuetral toilet on the ground floor of the pub in the stairwell, but the m/f toilets on the first floor (the venue) are not wheelchair accessible. There is a bar in the venue, and plenty of seating.

This information is not exhaustive, so If you have any other accessibility inquiries, please contact us (Joe Luna or Eleanor Careless) or the venue.

 

Robert Sheppard: thoughts on EUOIA

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“I’d like to publicly thank everybody for making this EUOIA night a memorable one. I think everybody played their strange parts of being half or wholly someone else! Those of you on video added to the occasion by suggesting elsewheres (though two were filmed in Norfolk and one in the very (lovely) space we were performing in).”

Some reflections on our European Union of Imaginary Authors night by Robert Sheppard, including news of the imminent Twitters for a Lark anthology,