I’ll Drown my Book: Conceptual Writing by Women

OUT NOW from Les Figues Press

Conceptual writing is emerging as a vital 21st century literary movement and I’ll Drown My Book represents the contributions of women in this defining moment. Edited by Caroline Bergvall, Laynie Browne, Teresa Carmody and Vanessa Place, I’ll Drown My Book takes its name from a poem by Bernadette Mayer, appropriating Shakespeare. The book includes work by 64 women from 10 countries, with contributors’ responses to the question—What is conceptual writing?—appearing alongside their work. I’ll Drown My Book offers feminist perspectives within this literary phenomenon.

CONTRIBUTORS:

Kathy Acker, Oana Avasilichioaei & Erin Moure, Dodie Bellamy, Lee Ann Brown, Angela Carr, Monica de la Torre, Danielle Dutton, Renee Gladman, Jen Hofer, Bernadette Mayer, Sharon Mesmer, Laura Mullen, Harryette Mullen, Deborah Richards, Juliana Spahr, Cecilia Vicuna, Wendy Walker, Jen Bervin, Inger Christiansen, Marcella Durand, Katie Degentesh, Nada Gordon, Jennifer Karmin, Mette Moestrup, Yedda Morrison, Anne Portugal, Joan Retallack, Cia Rinne, Giovanni Singleton, Anne Tardos, Hannah Weiner, Christine Wertheim, Norma Cole, Debra Di Blasi, Stacy Doris & Lisa Robertson, Sarah Dowling, Bhanu Kapil, Rachel Levitsky, Laura Moriarty, Redell Olsen, Chus Pato, Julie Patton, Kristin Prevallet, a.rawlings, Ryoko Seikiguchi, Susan M. Schultz, Rosmarie Waldrop, Renee Angle, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Tina Darragh, Judith Goldman, Susan Howe, Maryrose Larkin, Tracie Morris, Sawako Nakayasu, M. NourbeSe Philip, Jena Osman, kathryn l. pringle, Frances Richard, Kim Rosenfeld, and Rachel Zolf.

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Keeping Time – Tamarin Norwood

Through a short residency at Modern Art Oxford (31st January – 19th February), Tamarin Norwood will explore the Legacy Fellowship to develop a visual vocabulary of choreography, instruction and transcription. As part of her ongoing investigation of the gaps between words and things, rules and games, intentions and accidents, she will track the progress of the Fellowship to create a new body of text and video work.

Shearsman Reading – Tony Lopez & Peter Robinson

The first reading in Shearsman’s 2012 series takes place on Thursday 6 February at 6:00pm for 6:30, and features Tony Lopez & Peter Robinson, who will be officially launching their new Shearsman titles: Only More So and The Returning Sky.

The reading venue is: University of Notre Dame in London, 1 Suffolk Street,
London, SW1Y 4HG (Just around the corner from the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square).

Admission free. but RSVP required as space limited. More details at the Shearsman site.

Maintenant #85 – Gonca Özmen

Contemporary Turkish poetry looks confidently back upon the iconoclastic individuals who have constituted its genuinely remarkable tradition, and the current cohort of poets emerging from the 21st century possess the unique sensibility in language that marks them from their predecessors and stamps their entire generation with the influence of their work. As the light of poets like Ilhan Berk and Nazim Hikmet begins to fade from view, it is poets like Gonca Özmen who have come into their own. After just two collections and a variety of prizes, Gonca has become one of the most direct, concise and eloquent voices in Turkish poetry and one who has begun to grow a reputation far beyond the borders of her home nation, thanks to last year’s publication of the Sea Within, a collection of translated poems from Shearsman press. In our 85th edition, we are pleased to welcome, our second Turkish respondent, Gonca Özmen.

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/maintenant-85-gonca-ozmen/

Accompanying the interview are five of Gonca’s poems, translated by George Messo, Ruth Christie, Mel Kenne, Saliha Paker respectively.

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/five-poems-gonca-ozmen/

Sucking on Words

Sucking on Words

A night of primordial sonatas, to celebrate 10 years of writers’ collective information as material
Venue: Whitechapel Gallery, London, E1 7QX

Date: Saturday 18 February 2012

Time: 19.30-22.30

Tickets: online here or tel: +44 (0)20 7522 7888

A feast of sonic poetry with performances by Rob Lavers and Simon Morris, Nick Thurston, and a headline set by Dutch avant-garde composer Jaap Blonk. A VJ playlist, put together especially for the night by Canadian poet Christian Bök, will provide sights and sounds between performances and alongside the drinks.

The audience are politely reminded that the ears have no lids.

As Jaap Blonk recalls: “The reception of these first public performances [of Kurt Scwitters’ Ursonate] was varying widely. On many occasions I was performing at rock or punk clubs as an opening act for a band, and lots of people were not at all into it. Their preference was either to just talk with their friends or hear their habitual kind of music. So they started to scream and protest, and often throwing things at me, especially beer, which fortunately was mostly given out in plastic, not glass containers. The culminating point of this kind of experience was a performance of the Ursonate, opening for a concert of The Stranglers at Vredenburg Music Center in Utrecht in 1986, for an audience of about 2000 fans. When I was announced, even before I had opened my mouth, people started calling out: “Rot op!” (“Fuck off!”), and when I started, the atmosphere became very much that of a football match, but clearly an away game for me. With massive roaring they tried to drown out my voice, but of course the P.A. made me louder. Six stage guards were working hard to keep people from climbing the stage and hitting me, and hundreds of half-full plastic beer glasses flew about me. But in the course of the performance I managed to win over at least a few hundred people, who were roaring in my favor. The next morning one newspaper had the headline “Jaap Blonk Shocks Punk Audience With Dada Poetry”, which for me was a nice testimony to the fact that Schwitters’ piece was still very much alive, in spite of its age.”

Book launch: Uh Duh by Sarah Jacobs

Via David Berridge:

Please join us at 7pm on Wed 25th January 2011 at X Marks the Bökship for a launch and performance reading of Uh Duh by Sarah Jacobs, the inaugural title of the LemonMelon/VerySmallKitchen book series:

The conversation between a poet and an artist at their first meeting was recorded. An extract from the transcription is presented:
‘So how would you where would you how would you describe what you what you do?’
– Sarah Jacobs
This poet and artist are a slippery pair. The gaps left by their absent presence are clearly visible on the page as a space for the reader to interact with the text. The particularity of their laughter disturbs me…ha, ha, ha…heh, heh, heh. Like David Bowie’s laughing gnome I can’t quite catch them yet at the same time get left imagining a scary encounter over lunch in which the pair squirt caviar and honey at one another in a Paul McCarthyesque carnival of filth, whilst their transparent words collide in mid-air, smash into one another and leave us quite spent. Writing this tough is a car crash.
– Dr. Simon Morris
X marks the Bökship,
210/Unit 3 Cambridge Heath Road
London
E2 9NQ

Notes and Sounds

Mick Beck’s Splendid Big Band, Gated Community

Plus

ALAN HALSEY & MICK BECK
Sound Poems

Gated Community is a collective improvising group formed by Mick Beck in 2005. Membership ranges from 10 to 15, and in this performance there will be 14 –

> Martin Archer : sopranino sax, bass clarinet, bass recorder
> Geoff Bright : saxophones and voice
> Neil Carver : guitar and effects
> Stephen Chase : guitar and other sounds
> Charlie Collins : drums, percussion
> Sarah Henderson : cello
> Lyn Hodnett : trumpet, voice
> John Jasnoch : lap-steel guitar
> Steve Jouanny : electric bass
> Herve Perez : soprano sax
> Mark Ridler : guitar
> Pete White : voice.
> Gillian Whiteley : piano
> Mick Beck : the motivator, tenor sax, bassoon, whistles.

THURSDAY 19th JANUARY
THE LANTERN THEATRE
18 Kenwood Park Road
Nether Edge, Sheffield S7 1NF.
Doors open at 7:30 for 8pm Start
£7 waged, £5 unwaged.

Intercapillary Places: Poetry at Parasol unit

Sanja Perovic – Critical talk ‘On the Control of Time and the French Revolution’. Dominic Lash, David Stent & Sarah Hughes – Music composed by Antoine Beuger and David Shepard. Thursday 12 January 2012, 7 pm, (drinks from 6:30 pm). Parasol Unit,Foundation for Contemporary Art, 14 Wharf Road, London, N1 7RW. T 020 7490 7373. £5/£3 concessions – free drinks & “Interior Ears” for all. Booking recommended

PENN sound radio

PennSound Radio, a 24-hour stream of readings and conversations from the PennSound poetry archive. Our daily schedule includes rebroadcasts of such series as Live at the Writers House, Charles Bernstein’s Close Listening, and Leonard Schwartz’s Cross-Cultural Poetics, as well as a curated selection of our favorite performances. You can play PennSound Radio through iTunes on your computer, or by installing the free TuneIn app on your iPhone, BlackBerry, or Android device. Listen at work! At home! At the gym! While rebuilding a transmission! And while you’re at it, follow us on Twitter (@PennSoundRadio) to keep up with all of our new programs and special features.

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