Michael Zand: The Messier Objects

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The Messier Objects are a catalogue of astronomical bodies discovered and published by Charles Messier in 1771. In this new collection of poems, Michael Zand re-frames these objects as totemic symbols that celebrate the creative and social diversity of the human experience. The Messier Objects are thus meditations on the colour and complexity of the universe, and a rejection of a perceived drift towards cultural polarisation, simplification and standardisation. Out now on Shearsman.

A launch will be held at Swedenborg Hall, 20/21 Bloomsbury Way, London WC1A 2TH on Monday 12th October at 7.30pm. The event itself is part of the Shearsman series, and Michael will be reading with Abdulkareem Kasid (with John Welch) and Anthony Caleshu. The readings are free to attend and there will be drinks.

Claire-Louise Bennett and Brian Dillon at Anthony Burgess Foundation

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Pond with Claire-Louise Bennett and Brian Dillon

Tuesday, October 6th, 2015, 6:30 pm | Free

Pond, the first collection of short stories from Galway-based writer Claire-Louise Bennett, is an absorbing chronicle of the pitfalls and pleasures of a solitary life told by an unnamed narrator living on the edge of a coastal town. Bennett pushes the boundaries of the short story into new territory. Part prose fiction, part stream of consciousness, Pond has been compared to Jenny Offill’s acclaimed Dept of Speculation. Hosted in partnership with Fitzcarraldo Editions, an independent publisher specialising in contemporary fiction and long-form essays, this event offers the opportunity to hear from a writer experimenting with narrative and form. Claire-Louise will be interviewed by writer and critic Brian Dillon. Brian is reader in critical writing at the Royal College of Art, and UK editor of Cabinet magazine. His books include Objects in This Mirror: Essays (Sternberg Press, 2014), Sanctuary (Sternberg Press, 2011), Ruins (MIT Press/Whitechapel Gallery, 2011), Tormented Hope: Nine Hypochondriac Lives(Penguin, 2009) and In the Dark Room (Penguin 2005). His writing appears regularly in the Guardian, the London Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, Artforum and Frieze. Contact events@anthonyburgess.org to book.

http://www.anthonyburgess.org/

Mondo: The Global Avant Garde

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Start date: Thursday 5th Nov 2015 Session times: Thursdays, 6.45 – 8.45pm, weekly. 5 sessions.

Explore a world of avant-garde poetry movements in SJ Fowler’s company and discover how their remarkable explorations in the written word often compliment, rather than antagonise, more formal writing practice. Over 5 sessions, 5 global avant-garde poetic movements will be used as references to springboard you into new writing techniques, stressing the possibility amidst the history. Covering five different movements of the post-war period, in five different nations, this course – with the energy, dynamism and invention of the writing it explores – will enrich anyone’s poetry horizons. Steven will organise a post-course reading for students on this course. See more at The Poetry School site.

Rhys Trimble residency and events at AiR Space/Craft Swansea

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The launch of Rhys Trimble’s latest book Swansea Automatic, as he uses Bernadette Mayer’s writing experiments to take us on an experimental poetic exploration through Swansea.

“Pick a word or phrase at random, let mind play freely around it until a few ideas have come up, then seize on one and begin to write. Try this with a non-connotative word, like “so” etc” – Bernadette Mayer.

Swansea Automatic (Aquifer Press) is an experimental novel by poet Rhys Trimble. It celebrates Swansea through the creative writing advice of Bernadette Mayer – an author associated with the American l=a=n=g=u=a=g=e poets. In the novel Trimble attempts every one of nearly a hundred pieces of ‘advice’, the results of which are a cross between an epic poem, a surreal semi-autobiographical comic novel and a notebook exploring the springs of creativity.

To launch the book Rhys Trimble will be in residence at Swansea’s AiR art and craft space, there’ll be an evening launch event and creative workshop where those that attending can try out some of Mayer’s innovative ‘experiments in writing’ for themselves.

Residency: 24th – 26th of September in AiR building
Launch party: 25th September 6.30pm
Workshop: Saturday 26th September 1 – 3pm, £5

AiR Space/Craft

30 High Street, Swansea, United Kingdom

The Globe Road Poetry Festival, 13-15 November

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The QMUL Centre for Poetry is thrilled to invite you to a three-day world poetry festival, celebrating the diversity of local and global poetic traditions in London’s East End, to be held at Queen Mary University of London, 13-15 November 2015.

Performers include Linton Kwesi Johnson, Daljit Nagra, M. NourbeSe Philip, Myung Mi Kim, Kaiser Haq, Caroline Bergvall, Samira Negrouche, Agnes Agboton, Anthony Joseph, Avaes Mohammed, Siddhartha Bose, Aisling Fahey, Pangaea Poetry, Ladies of the Press, Ross Sutherland, Theo Chiotis, Hannah Silva, Andra Simons, Shama Rahman, Miriam Nash, Michael Vidon, Gareth Evans, and Elaine Mitchener.

Programme and booking information on the QMUL Centre for Poetry website: http://www.poetry.qmul.ac.uk/events/globeroad/152563.html.  Almost all events are free but booking is essential.

Out of Everywhere 2

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Nearly 20 years after the publication of Reality Street’s flagship poetry anthology Out of Everywhere (see below), its sequel celebrates a new generation of innovative poetry by women. The 44 contributors are:

Sascha Akhtar, Amy De’Ath, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Andrea Brady, Lee Ann Brown, Elizabeth-Jane Burnett, Mairéad Byrne, Jennifer Cooke, Corina Copp, Emily Critchley, Jean Day, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Carrie Etter, Kai Fierle-Hedrick, Heather Fuller, Susana Gardner, Susan Gevirtz, Elizabeth James/Frances Presley, Lisa Jarnot, Christine Kennedy, Myung Mi Kim, Frances Kruk, Francesca Lisette, Sophie Mayer, Carol Mirakove, Marianne Morris, Erín Moure, Jennifer Moxley, Redell Olsen, Holly Pester, Vanessa Place, Sophie Robinson, Lisa Samuels, Kaia Sand, Susan Schultz, Eleni Sikelianos, Zoë Skoulding, Juliana Spahr, Elizabeth Treadwell, Catherine Wagner, Carol Watts, Sara Wintz, Lissa Wolsak.

Out now on Reality Street. The Other Room will host a northern launch event for the anthology on 9th December. More details to follow.

Alistair Noon: a preview

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Alistair Noon will perform at the next Other Room on Wednesday 7th October 2015, 7 pm, The Castle Hotel, Oldham Street, Manchester, M2 4PD. This film is of Alistair reading a collaborative piece with Giles Goodland at SJ Fowler’s Camaradefest in 2013. The other readers will be Robert Hampson, Michelle Naka Pierce and Chris Pusateri.

 

 

A Language Art: Course for Tate Modern

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Mondays, 26 October – 30 November 2015, 18.45–20.45.

Over six weeks, SJ Fowler explores the intersections between the post-war traditions of modern art and avant-garde poetry. Discovering poets and artists from the Tate collection who make use of language, sound, space, printing and writing, this course reveals how these practises are fundamental to both arts.

Sessions are based within the galleries of Tate Modern in the presence of works by Gerhard Richter, Li Yuan-Chia and RB Kitaj, which bring to light some of the great moments in modern art and poetry that have enriched the traditions of both writing and art-making. Each week participants are also introduced to contemporary examples of work inspired by those held in the Tate Collection, as well as encouraged to create and share their own avant-garde poetry and text art in the extraordinary environment of the museum. One session is held at Tate Britain and includes the chance to explore Tate’s Prints and Drawings Rooms.

This course is for people interested in developing their own skills and understanding of experimental poetry and modern and contemporary art practises. More details at the Tate site.

James Davies – Changing Piece

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Changing Piece is a new on going poem by James Davies which exists online. The base sentence of this online version was written 16/09/15.

Abandoned Word and print-based versions exist from around 2006 — about 50 poems were written intermittently.

In the Word version one word was deleted and replaced with another. After this the file was always saved so that on the computer there was only ever one poem in existence, the most current.

The poems were also printed out and stored in a box.

Find out more HERE

POLYproject 7: Text.Score.

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POLYproject 7: Text.Score.

Angharad Davies

Redell Olsen

Rhodri Davies

Will Montgomery

Realisations of scores by Davies, Olsen and Davies.

12 October, 7.30pm, free entry.

The Cello Factory, Cornwall Street, London SE1 8TJ (nearest tubes Waterloo, Southwark).

Presented by the Poetics Research Centre, Royal Holloway, University of London.

Place / Waste / Dissent

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PLACE WASTE DISSENT is a book that takes the aesthetics of poetry as seriously as the occupation and protests that inspired its writing.

Having spent three years in the early 1990s occupying properties and protesting in Claremont Road, east London, poet Paul Hawkins maps the run-off, rackets and resistance along the route of the proposed M11 Link Road.

Using the voices of Dolly Watson, Old Mick and many others in avant-garde experimental text and lo-fi collage, he explores place, waste and dissent; the stake the Thatcher/Major Tory government was driving into the heart of the UK.

From Claremont Road to Cameron via surveillance culture and Occupy: transient-beta memory traces re-surfacing along the A12. This collection is an important reflection on a historic site of resistance, offering us illumination, ideas and inspiration for the future. Available to order now from Influx Press.