James Davies

Tim Atkins’ 1000 Sonnets published by if p then q

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The long awaited full set of Tim Atkins’ minimalist sonnets is finally here. First published by The Figures back in 2000 this if p then q collection contains over 100 extra sonnets to comprise 127. The title alludes to Kenneth Koch’s hilarious sequence of short plays/skits 1000 Avant Garde Plays and as ever Tim Atkins’ magic is in the spirit of that playfulness. You will have clocked some of these delights in The Reality Street Book of Sonnets.

What Ron Silliman had to say about Sonnet 91:

“Certainly a sonnet is possible in which these words fall in these places. Yet is not clear if anything, in fact, is missing. As such, the text stands mute, ironic, self-amused all at once.”

LINK to purchase from if p then q

Openned Zine 3

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Third installment featuring:

  • Joe Luna and Steve Willey on SoundEye
  • Susana Gardner on the Greenwich Cross-Genre Festival
  • Harry Godwin explaining the Cleaves editorial process
  • Linus Slug curating recollections of the Morden Tower reading with contributions from Chris Stephenson, S J Fowler, Stephen Emmerson,
  • Nat Raha, Michael Zand, Gareth Durasow and Antony John
  • Jonny Liron exploring The Situation Room
  • David-Baptiste Chirot’s editorial for the forthcoming Openned Eyes online gallery
  • James Davies’ thoughts on live streaming readings following his if p then q broadcast
  • Lara Buckerton tackling The eBook Nova
  • Adrian Clarke’s primer on And
  • Stephen Emmerson’s introduction to blart

    Plus regular features:

  • Bookface
  • Bird Puke
  • Logbay

    Photography: in this issue, Amy De’Ath, Sharon Borthwick, Georgie M’Glug, Nat Raha and Tommy Peeps

    LINK

POLYply 3: A certain slant of light : in response to the work of Emily Dickinson

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• Readings by Amy De’Ath, Lucy Sheerman, Harry Gilonis and Prudence Chamberlain

• Antoine Beuger’s Landscapes of Absence, performed by Tim Parkinson, Angharad Davies, David Stent and Dominic Lash (music), Carol Watts (voice), with video by Els van Riel

• Video by Kristen Kreider, shot at Dickinson’s home in Amherst, Massachusetts

• Book art by Susan Johanknecht

LINK

Centre for Creative Collaboration
16 Acton Street, Kings Cross, London WC1X 9NG.
Thursday 9 September, 7pm.

Free entry, all welcome.

Anna Mendelssohn/Grace Lake celebration

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A Celebration of Anna Mendelssohn

There will be a celebration of the life and poetry of Anna Mendelssohn/Grace Lake on 15 September, 6-9 pm, to be held in the Council Room in Birkbeck College, Torrington Square, London WC1. The event is jointly hosted by Birkbeck Poetics Centre and The Centre for Modernist Studies at Sussex, and has been organised with her family and friends, as well as those interested in her poetry. There will be readings from Anna’s work and other poems from among others Ian Patterson, Sean Bonney, Barry Schwabsky, Frances Presley, Chloe Harries, and Jane Liddell-King, and words from those who knew her, including members of her family and Peter Riley, who worked to save her extraordinary archive after her death.

The event is open to all, and if you’d like to read please let either Sara Crangle (skcrangle@gmail.com) or myself know (c.watts@bbk.ac.uk), so that we can plan the evening with room for everyone. Also do drop me a line if attending, so we have a sense of the numbers for refreshment. If anyone has any images of artwork or photos of Anna that we can receive in jpeg form, that would also be great and we’ll display them on the evening.

Via Carol Watts

WRITING/ EXHIBITION/ PUBLICATION: VerySmallKitchen at THE PIGEON WING 3 Sep – 3 Oct 2010

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Curated by David Berridge, VerySmallKitchen in residence at The Pigeon Wing presents a month long exploration of how writing moves (or not) between the locations of WRITING/ EXHIBITION/ PUBLICATION. Throughout September The Pigeon Wing will be both work space and exhibition, with a program of exhibitions, readings, performances, research projects, libraries, and screenings, exploring an abundance of forms and practices at the interface of writing and art practices.
Notes, essays, scripts, scores, propositions, live writings, scrawls, appropriations, assemblings and dissemblings, accretive structures and/or deletions, are some of the strategies to be explored by a range of contemporary practitioners from the UK, Hungary, Ireland, the US and elsewhere. Throughout the exhibition, the gallery will also provide a focal point for the THE FESTIVAL OF NEARLY INVISIBLE PUBLISHING, a programme of self-organised events happening throughout the world, evidence of which are submitted to the gallery for archive and display.

The unfolding exhibition is organised around four key areas: WRITING LIVE, THE DEPARTMENT OF MICRO-POETICS, EXHIBITION/ PUBLICATION, and ASSEMBLING (the last presenting a remarkable exhibition-within-an-exhibition from Franticham/ Red Fox Press’s unique archive of rare assembling publications from 1970-2010). Whilst many artists have created texts and installations specifically for the space, others will produce work that unfolds at each of the live events, whilst other scores and contractual arrangements unfold at times not publicly announced. As part of Deptford X a final weekend will see artists working in the space leading up to a final performance event and feast.

As well as opening and closing performance events, the schedule currently includes: Ignite and Reprise: Films by Matthew MacKissack; LemonMelon Publishing Seminar; DISSASSEMBLING CANNON by Phil Baber; Aphorism as Art Practice Sunday; conversations with Simon Cutts and Francis van Maele; and month long writing residencies from Press Free Press, Julia Calver, Hammam Aldouri (assistanted by Helen Kaplinsky) and Tamarin Norwood.

Contributing artists:
Hammam Aldouri
Phil Baber
Bagazine
Julia Calver
Maurice Carlin
Anne Charnock
Rachel Lois Clapham
Emma Cocker
Simon Cutts
Matt Dalby
James Davies
Sonia Dermience
Karen Di Franco
Marianne Holm Hansen
Sarah Jacobs
Joy as Tiresome Vandalism
The Knives, Forks and Spoons Press
Helen Kaplinsky
Mirja Koponen
Márton Koppány
Freek Lomme/ Onomatopee
Matthew MacKissack
Marit Muenzberg/ LemonMelon
Tamarin Norwood
Pippa Koszerek
Mary Paterson
Press Free Press
Red Fox Press
Colin Sackett
Seekers of Lice

Manchester’s (and north west) Huge winter programmme

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Things to juggle with:

30th September – James Davies & Adrian Slatcher @ Didsbury Arts Festival: LINK

30th September – Anthony Rowland, Scott Thurston, Robert Sheppard (KFS event) @ Burgess Centre: LINK

6th October – The Other Room 19 with Emily Cricthley, Adrian Clarke and Steve Willey @ Old Abbey Inn

7th October – Counting Backwards with Sonic Pleasure, Mick Beck, Richard Barrett and Stephen Emerson: LINK

19th October – The Other Room 20 with Jerome Rothenberg, Maggie O’Sullivan and Allen Fisher @ Burgess Centre

4th September – 31st October – A Perverse Library curated by Information as Material (Simon Morris, Nick Thurston, Craig Dworkin et al) @ Shandy Hall (just outside York) : LINK

James Davies interviewed about if p then q at Ink Sweat and Tears

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My approach is to banish the myth that experimental poetry is impossible to read. I think that being able to read experimental poetry is often seen as an elitist or privileged skill. But it’s not always like that: I don’t know how to fix a sink but I could do it if I did the training. It’s often a case of time or patience. I have an aim of presenting it as such, letting people know that. I’ve done a lot of bubblegum things to get people interested: promotional paraphernalia, wacky gifts, goofy blog speech, events. And I’m also in the business of telling people they don’t have to ‘understand’ a poem for it to be fun. I mean, I don’t understand an ice cream. I personally don’t understand a lot music I listen to but again I could do if I put in the work.

Read the rest HERE

onedit 16

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new issue featuring:

Emily Critchley
Gareth Durasow
Gregory Farnum
Alec Finlay
Allen Fisher
Elizabeth Guthrie
Ralph Hawkins
Elffish Jon
Kevin Killian
Richard Parker
Francisco Petrarch
Robert Sheppard
Jonty Tiplady

LINK

Nojagtig Pamplemousse

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Nojagtig Pamplemousse was shown at the recent if p then q book launches. It is part of the book  Absolute Elsewhere by Joy as Tiresome Vandalism published by The Knives Forks and Spoons Press. The video below is to be played on a loop. It’ll be archived at if p then q in the next few days.

LINK to Knives Forks and Spoons Press

LINK to video