‘The instability of definitions and the volatility of signs and signifiers’
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plants
James Davies reads from Plants
Film from James Davies’ reading at The International Anthony Burgess foundation available here.
James Davies’ Plants reviewed
Much of Davies’ work occupies a place between poetry and conceptual art. His poetry is shot through with references to the work of artists as wide ranging as Franz Kline, Vija Celmins and Thomas Fehlmann. Lines such as “next we masticated to Jeff Koons’ record collection”. Formally, his work responds in different ways to that of these artists. His chilly, wet and monotonous poem ‘The Weather’, made up of four identical tercets describing the weather, each tercet ending in the line “I wonder what it will do tomorrow” seems to be a response to the centreless, representational graphite Sea and sky drawings by Celmins.
Colin Herd reviews James Davies at 3am Magazine.
James Davies and David Gaffney book launches
An invitation to celebrate the launches of
David Gaffney’s The Half-Life of Songs published by Salt (www.saltpublishing.com/books/smf/1844712923.htm)
and
James Davies’ Plants published by Reality Street (www.realitystreet.co.uk)
May 10th, 6.30pm
The International Anthony Burgess Foundation, Cambridge Street, Manchester
This is a FREE event
David Gaffney lives in Manchester and Durham. He is the author of Sawn Off Tales (2006), Aromabingo (2007), Never Never (2008), Buildings Crying Out, a story using lost cat posters (Lancaster litfest 2009), 23 Stops To Hull a set of stories about every junction on the M62 (Humber Mouth festival 2009) Sawn off opera a set of operas with composer Ailis Ni Riain (Radio Three, RNCM, Liverpool philharmonic and tete a tete festival London 2010 ) Destroy PowerPoint, stories in PowerPoint format for Edinburgh festival 2009, the Poole Confessions stories told in a mobile confessional box (Poole Literature festival 2010) and he has written articles for the Guardian, Sunday Times, Financial Times and Prospect magazine. His new collection of short stories, The Half-Life of Songs, is out now, and look out for his current project, Station Stories, in which six writer linked to the audience with wireless headphones, perform short stories in Manchester Piccadilly railway station. See http://www.davidgaffney.org for more.
James Davies is the author of Plants (Reality Street), The Manual Handling Process (Beard of Bees) and Acronyms (onedit); with Simon Taylor, as Joy as Tiresome Vandalism, aRb (if p then q) and Absolute Elsewhere (Knives Forks and Spoons). He edits if p then q (www.ifpthenq.co.uk) and is one of the organisers of The Other Room poetry night and website (www.theotherroom.org)
otherroom.org 