The first anthology of the poetic form of sestina. Here, 100 writers—from John Ashbery to David Lehman to Matt Madden and Patricia Smith—offer their sestinas. A 39-line poetic form, the sestina is the one form all poets agree can exist in a free-verse world, as formalists and avant-gardes love sestinas for their ornate, maddeningly complicated rules of word repetition.
More HERE
Gareth Twose is unfortunately now now able to perform at The Other Room on Wednesday, 4th December. We are, however, pleased to announce that Rachel Smith will be performing. More details of Rachel and her work to follow very soon. Gareth will appear in 2014.
Critical Documents is pleased to announce its latest publication: Ryan Dobran’s Remote Carbon. Swaddled in gorge-destabilising cover images by Emir Šehanovic, this large-format 32-page collection brings together ten fugitive poems from 2008 to 2012, and includes the brand-new clutch of complicated instrumentation, ‘Ode to Dragon Bond’. It is available for the agreeable price of £4, $10, or €7 (shipping included).
Mopher, where performance, art, writing, poetry, voice, concept and sound meet to wither and perish in order to rise again as something else, more than the sum of its parts. Mopha is a singular art performance / live poetry collective made up of six of the UK’s most accomplished artists / poets – Holly Pester, Patrick Coyle, Emma Bennett, SJ Fowler, James Wilkes and Tamarin Norwood.
Eschewing and mulching the multiple genres of live art and experimental writing, Moffa will premiere it’s work in 2014 at multiple venues in multiple forms.
Exploring notions of fractured speech, aberrant theatre, surreal vocality, performativity and audience expectation, improvisation and its tropes, compressed communication, humour and bleak irony, Moffer aims to create powerful immediate, arresting and unique works of performance that are mindful, and responsive, to their construction and contextual environment. Wholly collaborative and essentially collective, the works of Moffar will pool and mutate the already adept live practices of six powerful performers into a uncommon mesh of theatre, art and poetry.
Here.
Listen to this on Jacket2
Robert Sheppard will read at the next Other Room on Wednesday, 4th December 2013, 7 PM start. Entry free at The Castle Hotel, 66 Oldham Street, Manchester, M4 1LE. The other readers will be Sandeep Parmar and Gareth Twose. The clip above shows Robert reading with Patricia Farrell at the Other Room celebration of Bob Cobbing in October 2012, performing Blatant blather/virulent whoops.
Bio.:
Robert Sheppard invented René Van Valckenborch, though sometimes during the writing of the poems in A Translated Man it felt like the other way round. The poems are safely published in a book of that title, published by Shearsman in 2013. Shearsman also published Warrant Error and Berlin Bursts, poems, as well a critical work When Bad Times Made for Good Poetry. Knives Forks and Spoons have published his prose, both fiction, The Only Life and The Given, an ‘autrebiography’, and they will be bringing out an expanded version of the latter in 2014. Robert has recently collaborated with the painter Pete Clarke and the dancer Jo Blowers (after a near 20 year break). He teaches at Edge Hill University.
Some links:
Pages, a blogzine of investigative, exploratory, avant-garde, innovative poetry and poetics.
Robert’s own website.
A Translated Man at Shearsman.
Hannah Silva will perform at The Other Room’s sixth birthday event in April 2014, but is in Manchester sooner than that to launch her new collection Forms of Protest. Details below via Penned in the Margins:
Thursday, December 5th, 2013, 6:30 pm | £6/£4
Three of the UK’s most exciting voices launch new collections in a night of cutting-edge modern poetry from award-winning independent literary publisher Penned in the Margins. Blackburn poet Melissa Lee-Houghton celebrates the launch of her second book, Beautiful Girls: a raw and powerful account of mental illness that has been awarded a PBS Recommendation. Hanna Silva, widely acclaimed for her innovative vocal performances, launches her debut collection Forms of Protest and Siddhartha Bose launches Digital Monsoon, where dreams trigger extraordinary visions of an apocalyptic London populated by the ghosts of a multicultural city. Hosted and introduced by Tom Chivers of Penned in the Margins www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk. Buy tickets here.
Ludicrous Aesthete was written for the Reel Iraq festival at London’s Rich Mix in March 2013: “obstinate dogmatic cunning capable// lion asks: is it written anywhere that/it had to be found in the darkness.” Out now on Blart.
Films of SJ Fowler’s collaborative extravaganza are now online, including this by Emma Bennett and Holly Pester.
NUMBER 2: Reviews of Goat Far DT & Papa Boop Ndiop, Luke Roberts, Anne Gorick, Judah Rubin, Alison Gibb, Justin Katko, SNOW #1, Tom Leonard, Richard Owens, Carol Watts, John Wilkinson, Rosa Van Hensbergen & Emily Critchley. November 2013. eds. Lindsay + Luna, design, setting and production by Robbie Dawson
“Sea Witch” consists of 21 poems, loosely based on each scene of the film Jaws. The shark is now female. The writing combines attention to verbal texture with use of space on the page to present a verbal-visual whole. Out now from Leafe Press.
Gerry Smith’s collaborative project is now online, creating a composite city from places, such as Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Manchester, describes as the Venice of the North.
Gareth Twose will read at the next Other Room, on Wednesday 4th December, The Castle Hotel, 66 Oldham Street, Manchester, M4 1LE. 7 PM start. The other readers are Robert Sheppard and Sandeep Parmar. The clip above shows Gareth reading at the launch of Top Ten Tyres in August 2013. Preview of Robert Sheppard to follow.
Bio.:
Gareth Twose is organiser of the Writers Forum North and one of the organisers of the Peter Barlow’s Cigarette series of Manchester based poetry readings. In 2012, he co-organised the Manchester Poets for Pussy Riot event at the Lass O’Gowrie. Recent work has appeared in publications including 3 am, Depart, Litter, Sunfish, Assent and Ink, Sweat & Tears. His debut collection, Top Ten Tyres, was recently published by Red Ceilings Press.
Some links:
Poems in 3 AM Magazine.
Poems in Depart.
Jo Langton at The Other Room August 2013
[vimeo https://vimeo.com/77483824 w=250&h=216]Hi Zero Proudly Present: Number 24 in the Current Series, Featuring Readings of Poetry by the Following Poets:
RYAN DOBRAN
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LISA JESCHKE
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PRUDENCE CHAMBERLAIN
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Music from a thing, the bar, lights, the whole shebang. Taking place at The Hope, Queens Road, Brighton, on –
TUESDAY 26th November –
£4 entry –
Doors at 7:30pm for an 8:00pm start.
This will be the last Hi Zero of 2013! Come and celebrate! More info soon! Please spread the word and invite your friends!
otherroom.org 