James Davies

The Blue Bus January – Paul Buck, Paul Holman and Jaime Robles

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The Blue Bus is pleased to present an event featuring poetry by Paul Buck, Paul Holman and Jaime Robles, on Tuesday 7th January, from 7.30 at The Lamb (in the upstairs room), 94 Lamb’s Conduit Street, London WC1. This is the eighty-fourth event in THE BLUE BUS series. Admissions: £5 / £3 (concessions). For future events in the series, please scroll down to the end of this message.
Paul Buck’s first book was Pimot (1968), and whilst he holds a fondness for all his books he might note re/qui/re(qui)re (1975), Lust (1976), Violations (1979), No title (1991), Walking into Myself (1995), Lisbon (2002), Spread Wide (2006)… along with his editing of Curtains through the 1970s and various off-shoots here and abroad… and his divertissements in film, theatre and music (albums with 48 Cameras, Marc Almond, Melinda Miel…). And not to forget countless books co-translated with his wife, Catherine Petit. Recent publishing includes A Public Intimacy (BookWorks), a text that strip-searches scrapbooks to expose autobiography and more, and Performance (Omnibus), a full-length biography of the Cammell/Roeg film, itself destined to be filmed. Currently working on what purports to be a fiction written through film criticism, and editing Disappearing Curtains, a sudden final issue of his magazine, using the exhibition at Focal Point Gallery as the core of the volume. Never wishing to escape presenting others, he is editing, with Catherine Petit, a series of books, under the banner Vauxhall&Company, to appear from Cabinet Gallery, that will publish translations by Pierre Klossowski, Colette Thomas, Bernard Noël, Georges Bataille, Pierre Guyotat and others, alongside works by himself, Stephen Barber & others that inflame and ravage on the boundaries of poetry, prose and theatre.
Paul Holman is the author of The Memory of the Drift. Books I-IV are available from Shearsman. A fifth book, Tara Morgana, is currently in preparation from Scarlet Imprint (http://www.scarletimprint.com/), who have also published his writing in their anthologies Datura and Mandragora. Work in progress can be found at http://paulholman.drupalgardens.com/. Material relating to Invisible Books, which he operates with Bridget Penney, is online at http://www.invisiblebooks.co.uk/.
Jaime Robles, a poet and book artist as well as reviewer, published her most recent book of poetry, Hoard, with Shearsman Books in January 2013. She has produced many of her texts as artist books, and her bookworks are in collections at the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley; The Beinecke Library, Yale University; and the Oulipo Archive in Paris, among others. Her poetry and reviews have been published in numerous magazines, among them Agenda, Conjunctions, New American Writing, Shadowtrain and Stride. She has written texts for several art song cycles and librettos for two one-act operas: Inferno (music by Peter Josheff), staged in 2009 by San Francisco Cabaret Opera, and Vladimir in Butterfly Country (music by Anne Callaway), which was staged in 2012. She is a member of the poetry installation collective ExEgesis, located in Exeter, UK.
Forthcoming events will include Sharon Morris, Burt Kimmelman and Jeremy Hilton (5th February), Elaine Randell, Robert Hampson and Joanne Ashcroft (18th March), Holly Pester, Doug Jones and Keith Jebb (15th April), Alan Halsey, Frances Presley and Ken White/David Miller (13th May), and Helen Calcutt, James Davies, Lawrence Upton, Stephen Emmerson, Sarah Kelly, Juliet Troy, Robert Vas Dias and others.

David Buuck at Birkbeck

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Reading and conversation with David Buuck

David will read work that comes directly out of thinking about Occupy Oakland & its more militant actions/offshoots/confrontations, put into context with broader questions about poetics and how Bay Area (& other North American) poet-activists are beginning to (re)think-through the always tangled questions of poetry/politics/etc.

7-9 pm
Wednesday 18th December
Room G 16
Birkbeck College, Main Building, Torrington Square

David Buuck is a writer who lives in Oakland, CA. He is the founder of BARGE, the Bay Area Research Group in Enviro-aesthetics, and co-founder and editor of Tripwire, a journal of poetics. An Army of Lovers, co-written with Juliana Spahr, is forthcoming from City Lights this fall, and SITE CITE CITY will be out from Futurepoem in 2014. Some publications, writing & performance samples, etc. available via davidbuuck.com

Steven Fowler’s Maintenant Course at The Poetry School is now open for booking

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This tremendous course starts in January…

Explore contemporary innovations in European poetry in Steven 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 great poetic movements will be used as references to springboard you into new writing techniques, stressing the possibility amidst the history. Covering OULIPO, Austrian modernism, Concrete poetry, CoBra and the British poetry revival, this course – with the energy, dynamism and invention of the movements it explores – will enrich anyone’s poetry horizons. Steven will organise a post-course reading for students on this course.

Some more details, direct from Steven …I’m delighted to announce that in 2014 I will be teaching a course for the Poetry School http://www.poetryschool.com called Maintenant! exploring post-war & contemporary European avant-garde poetry. It’s a bi-weekly course, five lessons over ten weeks, aiming to elucidate traditions that might be occluded in the UK, and explore how their innovations in writing can compliment people’s poetry in the now. The onus is on how these great moments in modern poetry can enrich writing practise, rather than dense historical analysis. It’s a rare chance to excavate avant garde work in such a setting, please sign up below if interested & in London.

http://www.poetryschool.com/courses-workshops/face-to-face/maintenant.php

Week One: January tuesday 28th – OulipoGeorges Perec, Jacques Roubeau, Raymond Queneau up to Frederic Forte and British Oulippeans like Philip Terry. The constraints that emancipate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oulipo

Week Two: February tuesday 11th – Austrian postwar modernismThomas Bernhard, Peter Handke, Elfriede Jelinek. How to deal with the legacy of Fascism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Handke

Week Three: February tuesday 25th – Concrete poetryHansjörg Mayer, Bob Cobbing, The Vienna Group, Oyvind Fahlstrom, Marton Koppany up to Anatol Knotek. The visuality of the poem as its meaning http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete_poetry

Week Four: tuesday March 11th – CoBrAAsger Jorn, Christian Dotremont, Pierre Alechinsky. Dutch, Danish, Belgian & beyond, poetry as art revolt & primitivism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COBRA_(avant-garde_movement)

Week Five: March tuesday 25th – British Poetry RevivalTom Raworth, Bill Griffiths, Maggie O’Sullivan & many many more.

Those every British poet should know, our immense late 20th century Vanguard heritage. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_poetry_revival & near the end of the course, on March 15th 2014, at the Rich Mix arts centre, the students will get a chance to read some of the work they’ve produced during Enemies: Fjender, which explores contemporary Danish avant garde poetry in collaboration, with Cia Rinne, Martin Glaz Serup and Morten Sondergaard, who will also be exhibiting his remarkable Wordpharmacy http://www.wordpharmacy.com Here is the interview series that inspired the course http://www.maintenant.co.uk/ all 97 editions so far.

See more at: http://www.poetryschool.com/courses-workshops/face-to-face/maintenant.php#sthash.zt47atrZ.dpuf

The Incredible Sestina Anthology

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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

Videos back in the archive

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A small part of our video archive, including readings and videos, hosted by MySpace has been down for a while. We’ve a couple more to sort out but meanwhile here are these videos back in action to be watched for the first time or again. Bon Appetit.

Nick Thurston December 2009

[vimeo https://vimeo.com/78619129 w=250&h=216]

Nick Thurston interview 2009

[vimeo https://vimeo.com/77545012 w=250&h=216]

Sophie Robsinon December 2009

[vimeo https://vimeo.com/78679878 w=250&h=216]

Sophie Robinson interview 2009

[vimeo https://vimeo.com/77545011 w=250&h=216]

Stuart Calton October 2009 at Oxjam

[vimeo https://vimeo.com/78618997 w=250&h=216]

Michael Haslam October 2009

[vimeo https://vimeo.com/78618999 w=250&h=216]

Mike Chavez-Dawson video clip at The Other Room

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As part of The Dark Would celebrations at The Other Room Mike Chavez-Dawson produced Rorschachs, in part by writing dead poets’ names in paint. These names were given to him by the audience on the night. This clip shows him making John Keats and below that a still of Brecht (Berthold).

brecht_rorschach

Mike Chavez-Dawson is an artist-curator based at Rogue Artists’ Studios, Manchester, UK. He instigated and curated the critically acclaimed shows ‘Unrealised Potential’ and David Shrigley’s solo show entitled ‘HOW ARE YOU FEELING?’ for the Cornerhouse (2012–13). His extraordinary proposal ‘Beyond the Medium, A Rake’s Dream…’ made the 100 favorite proposals for Artangel ‘OPEN’ 2013 and now is in production for 2015.He was recently commissioned by the Centre for Contemporary Chinese Art for their ‘Don’t Feed the Artist’ performance program, and awarded the open submission commission for Emergency 2013 by hab, z-arts and word of warning.

Chavez-Dawson judged (alongside Laurie Peake, Paul Stolper and Iain Andrews) and curated the neo:art prize 2013.
He is a PhD research fellow at MMU, MIRIAD, and has exhibited and performed at TATE Britain, Barbican, ICA, Cornerhouse, The Whitworth Art Gallery, British Art Show 7 at Nottingham Contemporary and The Whitstable Biennale (2008). He has also had numerous international shows and projects in Rome, New York, Sans Francisco, Lisbon, Seoul, Helsinki and Dresden.

Writers’ Forum North next event

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Writers’ Forum North is meeting again next saturday (26th October). It’s 2-4 pm in function room above Terrace bar in Edge street, Manchester M2. It’s just down road from Madlab, go through back entrance of Terrace and turn immediately right and go up the stairs.

Bring photocopies of poem you like (by someone else) – and one of your own.

The Text Festivals: Language Art and Material Poetry

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Text_collini

The Text Festivals: Language Art and Material Poetry edited by Tony Lopez

It is a remarkable phenomenon that the foremost among recent sites of this interrogation of boundaries has been a series of festivals located in Bury, on the outskirts of Greater Manchester. World leading artists and poets have been brought together in a range of exhibitions and performances that demonstrate a new and productive collision of different cultural enterprises and expectations. Among those shown at the Text Festivals are Fiona Banner, derek beaulieu, Caroline Bergvall, Joseph Beuys, Christian Bok, Brass Art, Marcel Broodthaers, Pavel Buchler, Augusto de Campos, Zeynep Cansu, Henri Chopin, Bob Cobbing, Liz Collini, Philip Davenport, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Hamish Fulton, Eugen Gomringer, Robert Grenier, Alan Halsey, Alexander Jorgenson, Satu Kaikonen, Martin Kippenburger, Karri Kokko, Marton Koppany, On Kawara, Helmut Lemke, Richard Long, Tony Lopez, Jackson Mac Low, Hansjorg Mayer, Steve Miller, Kerry Morrison, Maurizio Nannucci, Patrick Fabian Panetta, Holly Pester, Tom Philips, Shaun Pickard, Kate Pickering, Hester Reeve (HRH.the), Spencer Roberts, Ed Ruscha, Ron Silliman, Mary Ellen Solt, Magda Stawarska-Beavan, Harald Stoffers, Carolyn Thompson, Nick Thurston, Aysegul Tozeren, TNWK, Tony Trehy, Nico Vasilakis, Carol Watts, Lawrence Weiner, George Widener, Ming Wong, and Eric Zboya. Artists, poets and curators working in these overlapping fields have written this book. It includes new essays by Tony Trehy (director of the Text Festivals), derek beaulieu, Christian Bok, Liz Collini, James Davies, Philip Davenport, Robert Grenier, Alan Halsey, Tony Lopez, Holly Pester, Hester Reeve (HRH.the), Carolyn Thompson, and Carol Watts.

OUT NOW from Plymouth University Press or via Amazon

Vlak 4

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New bulging issue…

The new issue of VLAK: Contemporary Poetics & the Arts will be available during the ‘Camarade‘ collaborate poetics event, hosted by Steven J. Fowler, 2-10pm, Rich Mix, 35-47 Bethnal Green Road, London, 26 October — or can be got direct at www.vlakmagazine.com …

INSIDE THE LATEST ISSUE….

‘ESSAYS’ Jeroen Nieuwland on ‘Printing Out the Internet’ Vanessa Place on Conceptualism David Vichnar on Mark Danielewski Darren Tofts on Peter Milne Ian Haig on the Horror of the Toilet Pam Brown on the UBU Films Collective Alice Notley on the Post-Olsonian Epic Dustin Breitling on the White Cube Bev Braune on ‘Harder They Fall’ Jim Ruland on ‘Django Unchained’ Niall Lucy on That Deadman Dance Ann Hamilton on Ian Hays Javant Biarujia on Environment and Language Karel Piorecký on Czech Concrete Poetry Benjamin Tallis on the Prague housing projects Olga Peková on Intermedia & The Posthuman

‘PHOTOMONTAGE’ Peter Milne, Ian Hays, Robert Herbert, Maldo Nolimerg, Vincent Dachy

‘PHOTOGRAPHY’ Adam Trachtman, Glendyn Ivin, Vadim Erent, Vadim Erent, Katherine Oktober Matthews

‘COLLABORATIONS’ David Kelly & Daniele Pintano Hal Porter & Mark Melnicove Fernando Corona & Chris Kraus Zuzana Husárová & Amalia Roxana Filip Louis Armand & John Kinsella Iris Fraser-Gudrunas & Mat Laporte Mark Atkins & Rod Mengham The Camarade Project curated by Steven J. Fowler: Sean Bonney & Jeff Hilson Marcus Slease & Tim Atkins Philip Terry & Jeff Hilson Allen Fisher & Philip Terry Emily Critchley & Tamarin Norwood Jeff Hilson & Robert Shepherd Tim Atkins & Harry Gilonis

‘FICTION’ Philippe Sollers, Louis Armand, Fakie Wilde & Brentley Frazer, Sean Carswell, Thor Garcia, Lou Rowan, Scott O’Connor, Phil Shoenfelt, Holly Tavel, Morgan Childs, Damien Ober, Andrew Robert Hodgson, Prudence Trinca

‘NON-FICTION’ Stephanie Gray on Super 8 Film Stills Kent MacCarter on Pork Town Sean Bonney on Hunger & Ritual

‘POETRY’ Sam Langer, Vanessa Place, Frédéric Forte, Anselm Berrigan, Micah Ballard, Christodoulos Makris, Bev Braune, Corey Wakeling, Jill Jones, Stephanie Strickland, Steve Dalachinsky, DglsN.Rthsjchld, Stu Hatton, Jessica Wilkinson, Ondřej Buddeus, Marjorie Welish, Vincent Katz, Robert Kiely, John Wilkinson, Michael Farrell, Cecilia White, Shane Anderson, Andrew P. McLeod, Jennifer K. Dick, Peter Šulej, Jane Lewty, Nat Raha, Fiona Hile, Pam Brown, Brett Price, Nathan Thompson, J.T. Welsch

‘ART’ Tray Drumhann, Amy Evans-Bauer, Hara Miko, Jan Pícha

‘INTERVIEW’ Alice Notley with Olga Peková

VLAK editorial collective: Louis Armand, David Vichnar, Edmund Berrigan, Ali Alizadeh, Steven J. Fowlers, Jane Lewty, Stephen Mooney, Olga Pekova, Jeroen Nieuwland, Ewelina Chiu. ISSN 1804-512X. 425pp. Publication date: October 2013 Published by Litteraria Pragensia: Prague, London, New York, Melbourne, Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam

— VLAK MAGAZINE www.vlakmagazine.com

ENEMIES: THE SELECTED COLLABORATIONS OF SJ FOWLER

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ENEMIES: THE SELECTED COLLABORATIONS OF SJ FOWLER
Toynbee Studios, London E1 6AB (Map)
Friday 25 October
7pm, Free
 Readings with Sam Riviere, David Berridge, Tim Atkins, Sarah Kelly, Eirikur Orn Norddahl and Tom Jenks. From the publisher:
“You are invited to join independent poetry publisher Penned in the Margins for the launch of SJ Fowler’s groundbreaking, multi-disciplinary collection Enemies; the result of collaborations with over thirty artists, photographers and writers – each imbued with the energy, innovation and generosity of spirit that has become Fowler’s calling card as a poet.
Meta-diary entries mingle with a partially redacted email exchange; texts slip and fragment, finding new contexts alongside paintings, diagrams and YouTube clips. Animalistic Rorschach blots and behind-the-scenes photographs from the Museum inspire a poetic that is dynamic but unstable: Fowler’s texts walk the high-wire between reason and madness, the individual and the collective, human and animal.
The Enemies are: Tim Atkins, David Berridge, Cristine Brache, Patrick Coyle, Emily Critchley, Lone Eriksen, Frédéric Forte, Tom Jenks, Samantha Johnson, Alexander Kell, David Kelly, Sarah Kelly, Anatol Knotek, Ilenia Madelaire, Chris McCabe, nick-e melville, Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl, Matteo X Patocchi, Claire Potter, Monika Rinck, Sam Riviere, Hannah Silva, Marcus Slease, Ross Sutherland, Ryan Van Winkle, Philip Venables, Sian Williams”
“An overwhelming assault. The geography is unnerving, almost familiar, then stinging in its estrangement.
Intensity crackles. Tension teases. At what point does collision become collaboration? When do the bandages come off?”
Iain Sinclair