The third issue of the B.S. Johnson Journal: ‘The issue with the truth’, featuring essays, interviews, peer-reviewed academic papers and creative pieces inspired by the British writer, with contributions from Andrew Robert Hodgson, Ed Sibley, Scott Manley Hadley, Philip Tew, Joanna Norledge, Jeremy Page, Alaska James, Richard Berry, Philip Terry, James Davies, Sue Birchenough, Ali Znaidi, Tim Chapman, Jim Goar, James Riley, Ruth Clemens, Kate Connolly, Joseph Darlington and Andy Miller
Other Room reader Philip Terry has a new book out now from Carcanet HERE
In Quennets Philip Terry develops a sonnet-like form invented by the Oulipian poet Raymond Queneau. Across three sequences, the ‘quennet’ is reworked and refigured in response to three perimiter landscapes. The first sequence, ‘Elementary Estuaries’, is inspired by a series of walks along the Essex estuary, the poems’ appearance on the page suggesting the landscape’s expansive esturine vistas, its pink sail lofts and windswept gorse, beach huts and distant steeples. In the second sequence, written after a series of walks around the Berlin Wall Trail, or Mauerweg, the form changes to reflect the physical, almost bodily tension of the wall as an architectural and social obstruction. The final sequence, ‘Waterlog’, retraces the steps of W. G. Sebald through Suffolk, and here the quennet’s newely elongated shape and ragged margin evoke the region’s eroding coastline, its deserted piers and power stations, electric fences and waterlogged fields. Terry’s project is bold in scope, his poems subtle in effect, a mix of sign and song, concerete and lyric, Oulipo and psychogeography. It is a work about boundaries, political, social, and natural, and about the walk as a critical apparatus through which these fields are shown to connect.
Two new summer Craters are now available:
Crater 33: August 2015. Philip Terry’s Du Bellay – Like Catalan Anarchy, with a lino-cut by Tim Atkins. Letterpressed broadside, three colours, £3 + p & p (run of 60).
Crater 32: August 2015. John Hall & Emily Critchley’s A Salutation to
Poetry. Letterpressed broadside, three colours, £3 + p & p (run of 70).
Available at www.craterpress.co.uk
The Blue Bus is pleased to present a reading by Tim Atkins and Philip Terry on Tuesday 20th January from 7.30 at The Lamb (in the upstairs room), 94 Lamb’s Conduit Street, London WC1. This is the ninety-sixth event in THE BLUE BUS series. Admissions: £5 / £3 (concessions).
Philip Terry was born in Belfast, and is currently Director of Creative Writing at the University of Essex. He is the author of the lipogrammatic novel The Book of Bachelors, and the poetry collections Oulipoems, Oulipoems 2, and Shakespeare’s Sonnets. His translations include Raymond Queneau’s last published book of poetry, Elementary Morality. Recent publications include the novel tapestry from Reality Street (2013), and Dante’s Inferno from Carcanet Press (2014).
Tim Atkins is a widely-translated and published poet, his work having appeared in The USA, Canada, France, Mexico, Catalunya, and the UK. Titles include Horace (O Books),The World’s Furious Song Flows Through My Skirt–a play (Stoma), 1000 Sonnets (if p then q), Honda Ode (Oystercatcher), Petrarch (Book Thug), and 25 Sonnets (The Figures). The Complete Petrarch — published by Crater — was a Times Literary Supplement book of the year for 2014 and was a book of the year in the American arts magazine Salon. A recent Summer Faculty member of The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University, h e is also editor of the online poetry journal onedit, and London correspondent for Lungfull poetry magazine.
The if p then q Christmas sale is now on. All books below are available via Lulu with decent postage rates overseas. The more you buy the less the postage! See if p then q – http://www.ifpthenq.co.uk for more details on the titles
David Berridge, Bring the Thing – WAS £8.00 NOW £4.80 LINK
Lucy Harvest Clarke, Silveronda – WAS £8.00 NOW £4.80 LINK
Derek Henderson, Thus & – WAS £8.00 NOW £4.80 LINK
Tom Jenks, A Priori – WAS £8.00 NOW £4.80 LINK
Tom Jenks, (*) Star – WAS £8.00 NOW £4.80 LINK
Tom Jenks, Items – WAS £8.00 NOW £4.80 LINK
Holly Pester, Hoofs – WAS £8.00 NOW £4.80 LINK
seekers of lice, Encyclops. – WAS £4.00 NOW £3.20 LINK
Philip Terry, Advanced Immorality – WAS £8.00 NOW £4.80 LINK
Chrissy Williams, Epigraphs WAS £4.00 NOW £3.20 LINK
Out now from Carcanet
Halfway through a bad trip
I found myself in this stinking car park,
Underground, miles from Amarillo…
Following his irreverent Oulipian reworking of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, in his new book Philip Terry takes on Dante’s Inferno, shifting the action from the twelfth century to the present day and relocating it to the modern ‘walled city’ of the University of Essex. Dante’s Phlegethon becomes the river Colne; his popes are replaced by vice-chancellors and education ministers; the warring Guelfs and Ghibellines are re-imagined as the sectarians of Belfast, Terry’s home city. Meanwhile, the guiding figure of Virgil takes on new form as Ted Berrigan, one-time visiting professor at Essex and a poet who had himself imagined the underworld: ‘I heard the dead, the city dead / The devils that surround us’ (‘Memorial Day’). In reimagining an Inferno for our times, Terry stays paradoxically true to the spirit of Dante’s original text.
The lineation speeds along at a nice articulated pace, the Dantesque pitch is right and propulsive, the cast of villains is energising, the balance between language and lingo, the allusive and the obscene just right… Berrigan the perfect shambling guide…
Seamus Heaney
It is brilliant… the pattern and rhythm very forceful and the lingo just stunning.
Marina Warner
Wednesday, 19 February 2014, 19:30 until 22:00. Electric Palace, 39a High Street, Hastings, East Sussex, TN34 3ER.
Philip Terry – A reading by the author of tapestry, an extraordinary novel retelling the story of the Norman Conquest from the point of view of the Bayeux Tapestry’s English embroiderers. Tapestry was shortlisted for the inaugural 2013 Goldsmiths Prize for fiction.
Ken Edwards – The publisher of Reality Street reads from his collection of fictions Down With Beauty and from Bardo, a reimagining of the Tibetan Book of the Dead set in Hastings.
Elaine Edwards – Co-founder with Ken Edwards of local band The Moors, Elaine will perform on flute and accordion.
Other Room reader and Reality Street author Philip Terry has been shortlisted for the new Goldsmith’s Prize.
Taking as its starting point marginal images in the Bayeux Tapestry, which have been left largely unexplained by historians, Terry retells the story of the Norman Conquest from the point of view of the tapestry’s English embroiderers. Combining magic realism and Oulipian techniques, this is a tour de force of narrative and language.
Read more HERE
A good review of Philip Terry’s novel tapestry is in today’s Guardian, and can be read online here.
REALITY STREET launches two books in London next week:
A monthly series of active reading. This month:
Online now at the press free press site.
Videos below from if p then q’s recent night in London with guest appearances from Michael Basinski and Jennifer Pike Cobbing. Look out for Jennifer Pike Cobbing in particular who read some of The ABC in Sound which will be read by an ensemble at the next Other Room, just under a month away.
Lucy Harvest Clarke
Philip Terry
Michael Basinski
Tom Jenks
Tim Atkins
Holly Pester
Jennifer Pike Cobbing
if p then q readingsTim Atkins, Michael Basinski, Lucy Harvest Clarke, Tom Jenks, Holly Pester, Philip Terry
Saturday 8 September 2012 7 PM Price: free The Betsey Trotwood 56 Farringdon Road London EC1R 3BL
if p then q is a Manchester based experimental poetry publisher with an international focus, which is especially keen on minimal and conceptual poetries. Following on from day’s events at The Free Verse Poetry Fair on 8th September, at which if p then q has a stall, an event will be held in the evening to celebrate the work of the UK based if p then q poets with a special guest appearance by the American poet Michael Basinski who has a limited edition postcard published by the press. A range of videos and sample materials are available on the website. The event is free and very welcome to all.
Tim Atkins is the author of To Repel Ghosts (Like Books, 1998), 25 Sonnets (The Figures, 2000), Oriental Tapping (Faber 2006), Horace (O Books, 2007), Folklore (Salt, 2008), and Petrarch (Crater, 2010). A selected Petrarch is forthcoming from Barque, and Honda Ode is forthcoming from Oystercatcher. He is editor of the online poetry journal onedit at http://www.onedit.net. Tim’s if p then q publication is 1000 Sonnets.
Michael Basinski is Curator of the poetry Collection, State University at Buffalo. His many books of poetry include Of Venus 93 (Little Scratch Pad) and All My Eggs Are Broken (BlazeVox). Michael’s if p then q publication is the postcard Dog Music.
Lucy Harvest Clarke was born in East Sussex in 1982. After studying Anthropology at Goldsmiths she travelled sporadically and lived by the sea. She now lives and works in London. Her poetry has featured on Great Works, Onedit, in Parameter magazine and in The Other Room Anthology Volume 1. Recently she has published a pamphlet EX3 with The Knives Forks and Spoons Press. Lucy’s if p then q publication is Silveronda.
Tom Jenks lives, works and writes in Manchester. He is the editor of zimZalla and one of the organisers of The Other Room. Tom’s if p then q publications are A Priori and *.
Holly Pester was born in Colchester in 1982. She now lives in London, teaching and researching at Birkbeck, University of London. Her PhD investigates the history of Sound Poetry and the poetics of analogue technologies. The sound texts and performance scores collected here have featured in various cross-disciplinary events, including the Serpentine Gallery Poetry Marathon, Text Festival 2011 and the Liverpool Biennial. In live scenarios her idiosyncratic vocal technique locates a poetic in between the disciplines of poetry performance, song and new media art. Holly’s if p then q publication is Hoofs.
Philip Terry is currently Director of the Centre for Creative Writing at the University of Essex. His books include the edited collection of stories Ovid Metamorphosed (Chatto and Windus, 2000), a translation of Raymond Queneau’s last book of poems, Elementary Morality (Carcanet, 2007), and the collection of poems Shakespeare’s Sonnets (Carcanet, 2010). Philip’s if p then q publication is Advanced Immorality
James Davies will be teaching an online course for The Poetry School
Experimental Sonnet Writing
Tutor: James Davies
Day / Time: Thursdays, fortnightly, 7pm UK Time
Duration: 5 sessions
First Live Chat: 4 October
Price: £76, £67, £60
Level: open to all
The Sonnet has proved to be the most popular form of poetry over the last 500 years or so. The twentieth and twenty-first century has seen the form reinvented time and time again in staggering ways which suggests there are no end to the possibilities it has to offer. On this course we will explore the form’s malleability and range. By reading a small amount of the key sonnets of modern and contemporary times, whilst considering the sonnet’s heritage, you will write your own 14 liners. Tasks will be based around sonnets written in the last hundred years or so (with a particular focus on the last fifty years).By the end of the course you will be inventing your own methods and processes and adding to this rich tradition. Students should have 5-10 of their own poems ready to work on which they are prepared to treat and manipulate; these need not be sonnets nor in any way complete.
We will be thinking about poets including: e.e. cummings, John Berryman, Man Ray, Matthew Welton, Ted Berrigan, Derek Henderson, Philip Terry, Jen Bervin, Tim Atkins, Tony Lopez, Juliana Spahr, Sarah Riggs
See www.poetryschool.com for more
John Havelda & Philip Terry — 2 May at 19:30 at The Apple Tree, Mount Pleasant, London WC1X 0AE. John will be reading from recent work published in Open Letter as well as older material. Philip will be reading from his new if p then q publication, Advanced Immorality.
Other Room reader Philip Terry’s Advanced Immorality is out now from if p then q
The title of Philip Terry’s book, and the name of one of the seven poems in his latest collection, is an antonymic translation (opposites) of Terry’s own translations of Raymond Queneau’s Elementary Morality. Queneau’s quennet form is further utilised in A Berlin Notebook. Also included are 50½ uproarious synopsises of imagined murder mysteries, the utter destruction of the sestina, Hamlet in four pages and much, much more. From start to finish Advanced Immorality is hilarious, polished, questioning and great fun.
Two videos from our August event:
Philip Terry will be reading at The Other Room on Wednesday 24th August. As a taster of his work, try Robert Sheppard’s discussion of his Shakespeare’s Sonnets at Pages or one of the sonnets themselves at Carcanet. Sections from his Dante’s Inferno, recently published by Oystercatcher Press, can be found at onedit and his recent reading at the launch of the Herbarium anthology is available on YouTube.
The other readers will be David Berridge and Rachel Lois Clapham.
The next Other Room will be on Wednesday 24th August at The Old Abbey Inn, 61 Pencroft Way, Manchester, M15 6AY, on Manchester Science Park. The performers are David Berridge, Rachel Lois Clapham and Philip Terry. 7 pm start. There will be a bookstall stocked with publications from the three performers and other books, chapbooks, pamphlets and objects from the north-west’s vibrant small publishing scene.
The Other Room is always free, but you can book a ticket via Eventbrite. This will let us know you are coming and put you on our mailing list. Eventbrite will also give you updates and reminders relating to this event.
Details of the three performers below. Previews of each will appear here over the next month.
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Find us on Facebook as Other Room.
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DAVID BERRIDGE lives in London, where he curates VerySmallKitchen. He makes language works for exhibition, performance, print and online publication. In print, The Moth Is Moth This Money Night Moth is published by The Knives Forks and Spoons Press and Kafka Thinking Stations: A Chora(L) Song Cycle by The Arthur Shilling Press. Electronically, Game, Global, Green, Grown, Guys is published by Beard of Bees and Black Gardens by The Red Ceilings Press.
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RACHEL LOIS CLAPHAM produces writing on and as performance as part of UK collaboration Open Dialogues and curates radical writing with the Arts Council partnership In a word…. Her own practice points…, punctuates movement and presses on physical gestures as text. Recent work includes Re- (PSL Gallery Leeds, Norwich Arts Centre and John Latham Archive London), WORK TRY HARD (Kaleid Editions) and (W)reading Performance Writing : A Guide (Live Art Development Agency). wwwopendialogues.com
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PHILIP TERRY was born in Belfast in 1962. He has taught at the universities of Caen, Plymouth and Essex, where he is currently Director of Creative Writing. His fiction, poetry and translations have been widely published in journals in Britain and America. His books include the celebrated anthology of short stories Ovid Metamorphosed (Vintage, 2000), Fables of Aesop (Gilliland Press, 2006) and the poetry collection Oulipoems (Ahadada, 2006). In 2008 Carcanet published his acclaimed translation of Raymond Queneau’s Elementary Morality. His latest Carcanet collection Shakespeare’s Sonnets was published in 2010. His chapbook Dante’s Inferno is published by Oystercatcher Press.
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