Maintentant 53 and 54

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A poet of international significance, the remarkable life and poetic career of Yuri Andrukhovych could be the source material for a film, or a good book (as it is, in a manner of speaking). After serving in the Red Army, he was a founding member of arguably the most important experimental literary group in the history of the Ukraine, the Bu-Ba-Bu (the group’s name stands for бурлеск, балаган, буфонада – ‘burlesque, side-show, buffoonery’), before taking his mantle as one of the most important political-literary figures in his home nation and a significant presence during the 2004 /2005 Orange revolution. His is an utterly distinctive idiom, both in his poetry and his widely acclaimed novels – some of the most bombastic, vital and memorable being produced in Europe at large. He stands firmly in the great European tradition of parody, satire and criticism and we are honoured to welcome our 53rd Maintenant subject, winner of the Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding, Yuri Andrukhovych.

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/maintenant-53-yuri-andrukhovych/

Accompanying the interview are six of Yuri’s poems.
http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/six-poems-yuri-andrukhovych/

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It would be a reduction to call Tomica Bajsić a war poet. It is true that his poetry is a voice of record, and undoubtedly, his former profession as a special forces soldier during the most tumultuous days of his nations recent history have shaped him and his work in general. However, Tomica inhabits a wider archetype, of which his war experiences are just one element of a much grander ideal. He is a poet of exploration, of challenge. He is a poet who makes his primary medium a full and unrelenting exaltation of experience, and his poetry follows from this worldview. In a generous interview, Tomica Bajsić, for the 54th edition of Maintenant, discusses his unique life and poetry.

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/maintenant-54-tomica-bajsic/

Accompanying the interview are seven of Tomica’s poems.
http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/tomica-bajsic-seven-poems/

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3am magazine & the Maintenant series presents in conjunction with Europe house presents

Nauja Poezija: Young Lithuanian & British poets in collaboration

April Friday 8th – 7pm – Entrance free to all (32 Smith Square, London SW1P)
We welcome three of Lithuania’s finest young poets to London with a reception at Europe House and an exchange of poetry from some of the finest native poets the city has to offer. Alongside Donatas Petrošius, Gabriele Labanauskaite and Tomas S. Butkus, a half dozen resident poets, featuring Agnes Lehoczky, Jeff Hilson, Jon Shaw, Tim Atkins, Kate Kililea and more will read short excerpts from their work.

SOUS LES PAVÉS

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Featuring:

  • Susan Briante
  • Sommer Browning
  • Lara Buckerton
  • Collective Anon
  • Elliot Colla
  • Linh Dinh
  • David Hadbawnik
  • j/j hastain
  • Danny Hayward
  • Justin Katko
  • Frances Kruk
  • Francesca Lisette
  • Pocahontis Mildew
  • Goat Far DT
  • Jay James May
  • Debrah Morkun
  • Richard Owens
  • Keston Sutherland
  • Tomas Weber

More here.

Bob Cobbing on Radio 4

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Make Perhaps This Out Sense Of Can You

Sun 20 Mar 2011; 16:30; BBC Radio 4 (FM only)
Sat 26 Mar 2011; 23:30; BBC Radio 4

Bob Cobbing’s playful experiments with sound and text have inspired a generation of poets, artists and composers. A writer whose work skittered between literature and music, poetry and artwork – he is, perhaps, best remembered for his extraordinary poetry readings. With his operatic, resonant voice he would boom, howl, chant and whisper leaving his audience enchanted and enraged in equal measures.

In this programme we delve into the work of Bob Cobbing – exploring his influence on the publishing world, his role in one of the most turbulent periods at the Poetry Society and the visual poem that outraged Margaret Thatcher.

Revered and reviled – he has been a controversial figure at times. In this feature the writers Iain Sinclair, Peter Finch, Alan Brownjohn and Paula Claire, amongst others, reflect on the musicality of his work, how he challenged the conventional notion of poetry and the surprising controversy sound and visual poetry caused in the twentieth century.

More here.

Hay on Wye 3rd annual Jamboree

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Advance notice of this splendid looking event.

THIRD HAY-ON-WYE POETRY JAMBOREE

JUNE 2nd – 4th 2011

Oriel Gallery of Contemporary Arts
Salem Chapel, Bell Bank, Hay on Wye

THURSDAY JUNE 2ND

6.30 – 7.30 pm: Festival Launch Reception

7.30 – 9.15 pm: Ralph Hawkins + Allen Fisher

FRI JUNE 3RD

11.00 – noon: Film and poetry: Colin Still

2.00 – 4.00 pm: Helen Lopez, John Freeman, Angela Gardner, Rhys Trimble, Paul Green

5.00 – 6.00 pm: Lecture: Robert Sheppard

7.30 – 9.15 pm: Carol Watts + Sean Bonney

SAT JUNE 4TH

11.00 – noon : Frances Presley, Glenn Storhaug

2.00 – 4.00 pm: Gavin Selerie, Tiffany Atkinson, David Annwn, Zoe Skoulding with Poetry Wales special bill.

7.30 – 9.15 pm: Kelvin Corcoran + Maggie O’Sullivan

9.30 – 10.30 pm: Grand Finale – Chicken of the Woods (bluegrass band, with dancing, drinking, and other enjoyable post-poetic shenanigans …)

Plus – All Saturday in Salem Chapel proper, Elysium Gallery in collaboration with

Hay Poetry Jamboree presents Bus Stop Cinema – a festival of short films.

ENTRANCE TO 7.30 EVENTS £5 (CONCESSIONS £3). ALL OTHER EVENTS FREE

The Other Room Itinerary rest of 2011

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An exciting series of events already brewing. Advance notice for those of you booking your holidays to the south of France. All at The Old Abbey Inn, Manchester, 7pm start unless stated.

April 6th – Ken Edwards, Alec Finlay, Carrie Etter & Derek Henderson

June 7th – Steve McCaffery, Karen Mac Cormack, Geraldine Monk, Alan Halsey (THE OTHER ROOM IN ASSOCIATION WITH INFORMATION AS MATERIAL IN LEEDS – TIME AND VENUE TBC)

June 8th – Steve McCaffery & Karen Mac Cormack

July 20th – Chris Goode, Jonny Liron & Tamarin Norwood

August 24th – Phil Terry, Rachel Lois Clapham & David Berridge

Scott Thurston’s Internal Rhyme now archived at PENN Sound

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Occassional Readings, Furzeacres on Dartmoor in Devon, UK, July 4, 2010

In this performance Scott Thurston reads the entirety of his book Internal Rhyme (Exeter: Shearsman Books, 2010). Divided into four sections, the book comprises a sequence of eighty poems in total, each constructed in four four-line stanzas which can be read in a vertical as well as in a horizontal direction. For this performance, Thurston experimented with reading two of the book’s sections in both directions. Taking the poems in groups of five, he used two approaches: firstly, reading all five in one direction and then returning to read the same five in the other direction and, secondly, reading each poem in one direction immediately followed by the other direction.

Internal Rhyme develops Thurston’s preoccupation with time and process as compositional elements, as seen in his previous book for Shearman, 2008’s Momentum. The subjects and themes are diverse and include poems responding to Blake, Klimt and Twombly alongside refigurings of the theoretical works of Alain Badiou.

LINK

Blackbox Manifold 6

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Including tributes to Edwin Morgan, and poetry by:

Niall Campbell
Joseph Donohue
Howie Good
Chris Hardy
Morgan Harlow
Carla Harryman
Christine Herzer
Ishion Hutchinson
Andy Jackson
Michael Leong
Rod Mengham
Mary Noonan
Frederick Pollack
David Prater
Rufo Quintavalle
Ron Silliman
Matthew Sweeney
Jon Thompson
John Welch
J T Welsch

LINK

Thus &: An Erasure of Ted Berrigan’s The Sonnets out now from if p then q

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Ted Berrigan’s seminal The Sonnets is renowned for its famous use of cut up technique and reconfiguration throughout the sequence. Derek Henderson’s erasure Thus & eliminates all words and typographical duplications. In addition to the strikingly beautiful, often minimalist, sonnets created by Henderson, Thus & asks new questions of each Berrigan sonnet and the sequence as a whole. Thus & reveals (conceals) not only the clusters of phrases/lines that were cloned by Berrigan but also words which he repeated; many obviously subconsciously. What is left in Thus & is part skeleton, and underbelly, of maître-sonneteer Berrigan’s The Sonnets and part alien remix by techno-magician Derek Henderson.

Sampler & Concordance
THUS&_sampler
THUS&_Concordance

LINK TO BUY FROM IF P THEN Q

Maintenant #52: Cia Rinne

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A poet whose work is as multifaceted and wide-ranging as her own European character, Cia Rinne is an unforgettable poet, artist and thinker. Born in Sweden, raised in Germany, before living for over a decade in Finland and then Denmark, her aptitude for languages includes writing in French and English, as well as speaking Greek, Romanian, Spanish, Italian… and on the list goes. Her unique and cultivated ability to utilise such a multitude of languages creates an idiosyncratic poetic idiom, one that is truly refined and multifarious at its root. She matches this sensitivity with a remarkably immediate visual poetic style. If we had to choose a representative for the Maintenant series and it’s aims, perhaps the true intricacy of Cia Rinne’s work would make her one of the most viable candidates.

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/maintenant-52-cia-rinne/<

Accompanying the interview are five of Cia's poems.
http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/five-poems-cia-rinne/

Here too is the sixth of the bi-monthly article series with Nthposition.com focused on unjustly overlooked European poets, this edition, the Sicilian symbolist Lucio Piccolo. http://www.nthposition.com/reilluminations6lucio.php

We have finalised the next Maintenant reading program, as part of the Lithuanian Declassified Arts project. http://www.lithuanianembassy.co.uk/index.php?-157739503

3am magazine & the Maintenant series presents in conjunction with Europe house presents

Nauja Poezija: Young Lithuanian & British poets in collaboration

April Friday 8th – 7pm – Entrance free to all (32 Smith Square, London SW1P)

We welcome three of Lithuania’s finest young poets to London with a reception at Europe House and an exchange of poetry from some of the finest native poets the city has to offer. Alongside Donatas Petrošius, Gabriele Labanauskaite and Tomas S. Butkus, a half dozen resident poets, featuring Agnes Lehoczky, Jeff Hilson, Jon Shaw, Tim Atkins, Kate Kililea and more will read short excerpts from their work.

3am magazine & the Maintenant series presents in conjunction with the Rich Mix presents

Declassified: Lithuanian & British poets in collaboration

April Saturday 9th – 7pm – Entrance free to all

(35 – 47 Bethnal Green Road, London, E1 6LA www.richmix.org.uk)

Tim Atkins & Tomas S. Butkus
Donatas Petrošius & Chris McCabe
Jeremy Reed & Gabriele Labanauskaite

A unique evening of exchange and collaboration between six of the finest poets in Europe communicating the rare command of their poetry, highlighting their shared engagement along with their own distinctive understanding of what is poetic.

http://www.maintenant.co.uk

http://www.youtube.com/maintenantpoetry
http://soundcloud.com/maintenant

the Songs of Salvador Sanchez

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In a limited edition of 40, the Red Ceilings presents the Songs of Salvador Sanchez, the 20th cycle in SJ Fowler’s “Fights” series. The Red Ceilings began as a poetry blog for both new and established contemporary poets and quickly expanded into publishing an ebook series of online and downloadable booklets. They have now started their latest venture – a series of limited edition A6 pocket sized chapbooks. They welcome submissions for the ebook series, chapbooks and blog and like innovative, experimental and avant-garde poetry in particular. For more information email Mark Cobley at theredceilings@gmail.com

http://www.theredceilingspress.co.uk/
http://www.redceilings.blogspot.com/

 

Maintenant #51: Ulf Karl Olov Nilsson

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An iconic poet in Scandinavia, Ulf Karl Olov Nilsson, or UKON, as he is often known, has established a remarkable reputation in the literary culture of Sweden at large, despite being a challenging and innovative poetic practitioner. A resident of Gothenburg, and a winner of the prestigious Göteborgs-Posten literary prize, he is a practising psychologist and psychoanalyst as well as a poet, and his prolific poetic output advocates the level of intellectual engagement and complexity that his chosen profession would suggest. It is hardly surprising that he also a deft satirist, lacing his writing with a black humour worthy of the great European tradition he maintains. For the 51st edition of Maintenant, Sweden’s UKON.
http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/maintenant-51-ulf-karl-olov-nilsson/

Accompanying the interview are five of Ulf Karl’s poems, translated by Fredrik Hertzberg, Karri Kokko, and Leevi Lehto.
http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/five-poems-ulf-karl-olov-nilsson/

Conversify: Call for Papers

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CALL FOR PAPERS
The University of Edinburgh supported by The Roberts Fund
and in collaboration with the Scottish Poetry Library
ConVersify: Poetry, Politics and Form   10-11th September 2011
[conversifyconference.blogspot.com]

This two day postgraduate led conference will bring together poets and
researchers to engage in a conversation about experimental, innovative
and alternative approaches to poetic form. While many poets
self-report that political objectives underlie their practice, in the
realm of, but not limited to, ideology critique, the assertion or
negation of identity and/or a confrontation with mainstream
publishing, charges of elitism, passivity and inaccessibility can be
levelled. Taking this point of tension as our catalyst, and adopting a
trans-historical perspective, we wish to consider what “experimental”
poetry is, and what it is for.

We are calling for twenty minute papers which: discuss poetry of any
period or genre which challenges or aims to challenge convention
through formal innovation and/or interaction with political, social
and cultural realities; explore the labels we use to denote
“experimental”, “avant-garde” or particular stylistic modes of verse;
question whether political objectives and/or antagonisms can be
articulated or furthered through radical approaches to composition and
language; consider how readers engage with experimental poetry.
Inseparable from these themes is the issue of what we perceive as ‘the
political’, what counts as a political act and whether the writer has
a responsibility to assert political agency; we are particularly
interested in papers in which these questions are at the forefront of
discussion.

Please send 250-300 word abstracts for 20 minute papers as a word
attachment to conversifyconference@gmail.com by 16th May 2011.
The conference will take place at 19 George Square, University of
Edinburgh. We will also be organising evening poetry readings in town
– please mention when you submit your abstract if you would be
interested in reading.
Organised by Lila Matsumoto, Greg Thomas and Samantha Walton.

Via Joseph Walton

Maintenant #50: Frédéric Forte

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It is rather apt, or rather remiss, that for the fiftieth edition of Maintenant we present our first French poet. The first of many no doubt. It is all the more appropriate, given our dictum, that our first French subject is the youngest, and 35th, member of Oulipo. As the most contemporary representative of that legendary group of writers and poets, it goes without saying Frédéric Forte is an adroit, inventive and certain presence in the ever-lively and rich French poetry scene. We are extremely pleased to mark our half-century featuring a poet who epitomises our commitment to urbane, intelligent and important poetry which is still evolving into its own distinguished completion.

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/maintenant-50-frederic-forte/

Accompanying the interview are eight of Frédéric’s poems, translated by JJ Poucel and Michelle Noteboom.