Monday 11th June at 8.30p.m at the New Beehive Inn, Westgate, Bradford BD1 3AA. (About 10 minutes walk from either Interchange or Foster square railway stations). Entry is by a £3.00 donation.
Robert Sheppard
Re-Word – mostly from the mainland
Performances of poetry and drama in translation, together with other local and European poets and translators.
Tuesday 22 May, 7.30-9.30 pm, Lloyds Upstairs, Lloyds Hotel, 617 Wilbraham Road, Chorlton, Manchester.
Provisional programme:
Issa haiku (Japanese) – Wilhelm Wetterhoff
Four contemporary Romanian poets – Daniel Puia-Dumitrescu (with Judy Kendall)
Poetry in Polish – Scott Thurston
Anna Szabo poems (Hungarian) – Szilvi Naray-Davey (with Judy Kendall)
INTERVAL 8.15-8.40
Hungarian drama – Szilvi Naray-Davey (with Judy Kendall)
Poetry in German – Daniele Pantano
Walloon poems from ‘A Translated Man’ (Belgian poet Rene Van Valckenborch) – Robert Sheppard
Contemporary English haiku and tanka by Sheila Butterworth, Martin Lucas, Stuart Quine, Fred Schofield, Ian Storr translated into Swedish, Finnish and Romanian – Daniel P-D, Wilhelm W, Martin Lucas/Judy Kendall
Peter Jaeger at Edge Hill
Tuesday, 28th February 2012, 7:30pm
The Rose Theatre, Edge Hill University
Edge Hill’s Creative Writing Department present
An Evening with Canadian poet, Peter Jaeger, at the Rose Theatre.
Tickets £4.00 all
Peter Jaeger is a Canadian poet, literary critic and text-based artist now living in the UK. He is the author of five books of poetry, including Rapid Eye Movement (2009) and The Persons (2011). He has recently collaborated with the video artist Kaz to produce the film Nozomi, which was exhibited at the Bury Text Festival in 2011, and he is currently
working on a critical monograph on John Cage. Peter uses found texts to write through the words of others: those protagonists who have animated his imagination and left their traces in newspapers, emails, diaries, books (from literature to philosophy), and in all the countless ephemera with which the externalised inner drama of our lives plays out.
Peter Jaeger teaches poetry and literary theory at Roehampton University, in London. http://www.roehampton.ac.uk/staff/Peter-Jaeger/
His work includes the poetry collections Power Lawn (1999), Eckhart Cars (2004), and Prop (2007), as well as a critical study on contemporary poetics, entitled ABC of Reading TRG: Steve McCaffery, bpNichol, and the Toronto Research Group (2000). He currently divides his time between London and rural Somerset, where he lives with his family.
Recent book from Reality Street: Rapid Eye Movement follows a strict constraint: two bands of text run continuously throughout the book. The top band consists entirely of fragmented dream narratives recorded by historical and contemporary dreamers, while the lower band juxtaposes found material which includes the word “dream.” No two sentences taken from the same source follow each other. As an investigation of the sign “dream” across a number of social discourses, including literature, psychoanalysis, advertising, popular culture, song lyrics, philosophy and
religious literature, Rapid Eye Movement presents a record of our culture dreaming.
“Jaeger dreams of the day when forestry operations can use balloon-based, skidding devices that float above the treetops and winch trees out of the forest without damaging the woodland floor. Jaeger dreams up some interesting shots. Jaeger dreams of peace. His book of dreams is not too different from a hope chest. His dreams are getting better all the time.
His dreams are coming true.”
Christian Bök
Members of the Edge Hill Poetry and Poetics Research group will be reading as a warm-up.
Two new books from Knives Forks and Spoons
The Only Life by Robert Sheppard and Soma | Sema by David Toms. Available now from Knives Forks and Spoons Press.
VLAK 2
Issue 2 of VLAK: Contemporary Poetics & the Arts is now available. VLAK 2 is edited by Louis Armand, Edmund Berrigan, Carol Watts, Stephan Delbos, David Vichnar, Jane Lewty & Ali Alizadeh. It includes work by Other Room readers Steve McCaffery, Adrian Clarke, Ken Edwards and Robert Sheppard and many others.
Robert Sheppard at the Bluecoat, Liverpool
Sunday 16 October 5.30 – 6.30pm
Part of the radical literary avant-garde sometimes called ‘linguistically innovative’, Sheppard combines subtle effects of language and tone with a variety of performance styles, from the direct and quick-fire to the musical. His most recent books are Warrant Error, a verbal intervention into the War on Terror and Berlin Bursts, which contains poems that explore one of his persistent themes of human unfinish. Anthologised in the OUP Anthology of Twentieth Century British and Irish Poetry he is Professor of Poetry and Poetics at Edge Hill University.
Robert says, ‘What I’m planning to do for this reading, which is an important one for me, is to plug into the Bluecoat’s theme of ‘city of radicals by reading some poems about Liverpool, some poems that I hope are radical in form, and others that are radical in content. While I will read from Berlin Bursts, my 2011 book, I am also going to read from other books and from recent, unpublished work, including a new radical poetry manifesto. This last piece was specially written for the occasion. Reading something new always makes me a little edgy, but that’s good. When I’ve finished I’ll be answering questions, signing books and having a drink.’
Free, ticket required. The best way to book is by phone or via the web.
Book at www.thebluecoat.org.uk or 0151 702 5324 School Lane, Liverpool, L1 3BX (which is also the venue).
The Innovative Sonnet Sequence
Robert Sheppard’s lecture on the Innovative Sonnet Sequence is now complete on his blogzine Pages.
Robert Sheppard – The Innovative Sonnet
Robert Shepard’s The Innovative Sonnet Sequence was delivered at the Hay Poetry
Jamboree 2011 at the Oriel Contemporary Art Gallery, Salem Chapel, Bell
Bank, Hay on Wye on June 4th 2011.
You can read it on Pages at www.robertsheppard.blogspot.com
It is in 14 parts, in deference to the sonnet. Posts will be one a day for the next fortnight. It therefore formally encodes the ambivalence towards the form found in the sonnet-like and sonnet-asperant
and sonnet-deviant productions of its most recent avant-garde practitioners and pasticheurs (many of them collected in The Reality Street Book of Sonnets, which appeared in 2008). Focussing on the sonnet sequences of Ted Berrigan, Tom Raworth, Jeff Hilson, Philip Terry, Geraldine Monk, Sophie Robinson, and Sheppard’s own sonnets
Robert Sheppard: The Bird Poem
Robert Sheppard reads from Berlin Bursts, published by Shearsman.
Robert Sheppard launches
Launch of Berlin Bursts (poems) and When Bad Times Made for Good Poetry (criticism).
Tuesday 7 June 2011, 7:30 pm.
Shared event with D.S. Marriott, who is launching The Bloods.
Swedenborg Hall, Swedenborg House, 20/21 Bloomsbury Way, London WC1A 2TH.
The entrance is through the portico on the right of the building. There is no admission fee. Hosted by Tony Frazer, publisher of Shearsman Books.
Robert Sheppard and Daniele Pantano
Via Scott Thurston:
Two Edge Hill University lecturers have published four books and two pamphlets of poetry between them in the last few months.
‘To celebrate this we will be launching them with two short readings, a Q and A and a chance to buy the books!’
Daniele Pantano and Robert Sheppard
Reading on Thursday 5th May 2011
at 5.30 in B005 (ground floor Business Centre, Edge Hill University, Ormskirk campus)
Senior Lecturer Daniele Pantano, who is Programme Leader for the BA Creative Writing, has published The Oldest Hands in the World, a new book of poems about exile, translingualism and writing one’s way home, as well as The Possible Is Monstrous, a collection of poems in English translation by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, who is seen not only as the most prominent Swiss novelist, playwright and essayist of the twentieth century but as one of the most influential authors of modern literature.
Both books are published by Black Lawrence Press/Dzanc Books, New York.
Professor Robert Sheppard, who is Programme Leader of the MA Creative Writing, has published a new book of poems, Berlin Bursts. Themes covered include the troubled history of Berlin, Riga and other places ravaged by history. There are poems about poems and a sequence about the doomed attempt to create a hologram poet. His critical book When Bad Times Made for Good Poetry is a history of alternative British poetry and deals with major figures like Iain Sinclair, Tom Raworth and Maggie O’Sullivan. Both books are published by Shearsman Books.
They both have pamphlets out from the enterprising local Knives Forks and Spoons Press–one of our Creative Writing students is currently serving as an intern there. Robert’s book, The Given, is an anti-autobiography, telling his life via events in his diary he cannot remember and others that he’d rather forget. Daniele’s book, Mass Graves (XIX-XXII), is an excerpt from a new collection of poems he’s currently writing that examines the lives, events and connections between an unknown Swiss poet and the savage murder of one of Egon Schiele’s young girls.
Daniele and Robert work together to teach Creative Writing within the English and History Department at Edge Hill.
Book details and links:
1. Robert Sheppard
Berlin Bursts (poems)
http://www.shearsman.com/pages/books/catalog/2011/sheppardBB.html
When Bad Times Made for Good Poetry (criticism)
http://www.shearsman.com/pages/books/catalog/2011/sheppardWBT.html
The Given (anti-autobiography)
www.knivesforksandspoonspress.co.uk
2. Daniele Pantano
The Oldest Hands in the World (Black Lawrence Press/Dzanc Books)
The Possible Is Monstrous: Selected Poems by Friedrich Dürrenmatt (Black Lawrence Press/Dzanc Books) both at:
www.blacklawrence.com/pantano.html
Mass Graves (XIX-XXII) (The Knives, Forks and Spoons Press)
Two new books by Robert Sheppard
Two new books by Robert Sheppard from Shearsman
BERLIN BURSTS (poems)
These new poems feature territories as dispersed as Sheppard’s local Capital of Culture and the global city of division and political murder of the title poem. Yet a series of metapoems brings agency and wonder to the idea of the poem, always seeing the world as well as itself, in perceptual double-takes that tease away at the meaning of the poetic act
At the centre of the collection is ‘Six Poems Against Death’ whose lyric imperative hovers before the portals of the unknown to embrace human unfinish as the condition of our survival.
Ian Davidson in Poetry Wales called Sheppard’s Complete Twentieth Century Blues ‘a major poem of serious intent’; Alan Baker in Litter called Warrant Error ‘political poetry of the first order’, and John Muckle wrote of ‘this brilliant, disquieting book.’
“Robert Sheppard . . . composed a few words around Liverpool’s status as City of Culture. ‘Their shit’s verdure but that’s OK/ This isn’t a nature poem.’ Sheppard’s near twenty-year epic, Complete Twentieth Century Blues, outweighed the Ringo returns, the showbiz art: he cooked slow and long, with tangy sauces and bits that break the teeth. The city
averted its eyes . . . As if it were the poet’s fault that we want our meat pre-chewed.” -Iain Sinclair
Order from the Shearsman online store and read more at:
http://www.shearsman.com/pages/books/catalog/2011/sheppardBB.html
Order from amazon.co.uk
Order from The Book Depository
Order from amazon.com
Order from Barnes and Noble.com (USA)
WHEN BAD TIMES MADE FOR GOOD POETRY (criticism)
This study presents an episodic history of an epic period in British poetry, when bad times forced political subversion and textual impaction upon its central figures and provisional institutions. Episodes cover the Poetry Wars of the 1970s; the centrality of Bob Cobbing as poetry activist and the SubVoicive poetry scene in 1980s London; he also writes individual chapters on the poetry and poetics of Allen Fisher, Tom Raworth, Iain Sinclair, John Hall, Ken Edwards, and Maggie O’Sullivan.
“A landmark study.” -Benjamin Keatinge reviewing The Poetry of Saying in The European English Messenger
Order from the Shearsman online store and read more at:
http://www.shearsman.com/pages/books/catalog/2011/sheppardWBT.html
Order from amazon.co.uk
Order from The Book Depository
Rene Van Valckenborch
www.robertsheppard.blogspot.com
http://twitter.com/VanValckenborch
100 twitterodes now complete for my followers and for the followers of my followers. Accompanying images at the blog listed above Nov 2010 +
Robert Sheppard (writing for Rene Van Valckenborch)
KFS reading and Didsbury Arts Festival reading: Thursday 30th September
If Only..! Robert Sheppard and others at The Bluecoat
IF ONLY..!
Wed 9 June 8pm Free!
Bluecoat Arts Centre, School Lane, Liverpool
The LAUNCH of Liverpool’s monthly melting pot of music, performance, dance, spoken word and the otherwise unclassifiable. If Only..!’s eclectic bills are brought to you by a group of Liverpool-based artists, curators and promoters in the spirit of celebration, exploration, provocation and revelation..!
Trinity Girls Brass Band [music]
The nation’s only all female brass band in virtuoso concert
Steve Lewis [music]
Original songs created from Lewis’s signature combination of voice, unexpected texts, bric-a-brac percussion and live sampling
Robert Sheppard [spoken word]
Sheppard performs new work exploring the poetics of space and launches Looking Thru’ a Hole in the Wall, a collaborative pamphlet created with Patricia Farrell
Maria Malone and Chris Murray Cover [dance/physical theatre] A duet between a girl and her bedclothes exploring the lands where addiction and dependence can lead.
Original concept by Marcus Drummond
Choreography and performance, Maria Malone and Christopher Murray with directorial input from Yorgos Karamalegos
LIC Studio and associate artists [dance/performance/music] Some of Liverpool’s finest improvisers and performers create a multi-disciplinary performance score
MC: Mandy Romero
British and Irish Journal 2 launch
In advance of the imminent publication of the Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry Volume 2, Number 1 (see http://www.gylphi.co.uk/poetry), a launch event will be held at University of Cork in association with SoundEye.
Featuring papers by Alex Davis, Sam Ladkin, Robert Sheppard and Scott Thurston.
Venue: University College Cork, O’Rahilly Building, Room 1.23, Cork City, Ireland, 16 March 2010, 6 pm – 7 pm.
Directions: http://www.ucc.ie/en/VisitorstoUCC/Transportmapsandparking/Maps/
Poster (PDF):
http://www.scribd.com/full/27468552?access_key=key-13fj15l8ams7kkokrdyo
Three events at Edge Hill
Via Robert Sheppard:
25th February 2010: Sean Bonney was born in Brighton and brought up in the north of England, and now lives in London. His books include Notes on Heresy (Writers Forum, 2002), Blade Pitch Control Unit (Salt, 2005),Document: hexprogress (Yt Communication, 2006), Baudelaire in English(Veer 2008) and Document: poems, diagrams, manifestos (Barque 2009). He co-edits the press Yt Communication.Together with other younger poets his work marks a progression and continuance of the British Poetry Revival. His ideological drive andenergetic performance style mark him out as a leading proponent of thisschool of poetry, so expect an explosive performance. Rose Theatre 7.30: £3.50
3rd March 2010 Jenn Ashworth was born in 1982 in Preston, Lancashire and studied at Cambridge and Manchester. She’s worked as a barmaid, a waitress, a Samaritan and a cleaner and she currently lives with her daughter in Preston and runs a library inside a prison. She writes a blog here: http://www.jennashworth.blogspot.com and her first novel waspublished with Arcadia in May 2009: A Kind of Intimacy Rose Theatre. 7.30: £3.50
Plus Open Poetry and Poetics meeting: Carrie Etter: 6-8.00 on 20thApril 2010, venue in Education Block; free
On her anthology Infinite Difference and her own poetry. Carrie Etter is an American poet resident in England since 2001. Previously she lived in Normal, Illinois (until age 19) and southern California (from age 19to 32). In the UK, her poems have appeared in, amongst others, New WelshReview, Poetry Wales, Poetry Review, PN Review, Shearsman, Stand and TLS, while in the US her poems have appeared in magazines such as Aufgabe, Columbia, Court Green, The Iowa Review, The New Republic, Seneca Review. Her first collection, The Tethers, was published by Seren in June 2009, and her second, Divining for Starters, containing moreexperimental work, is due for publication by Shearsman Books in 2011.She is Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing for Bath Spa University.
Selected papers from BIJIP now available for download
Papers by Caroline Bergvall, Andrea Brady & Robert Hampson
Salford launch of The British and Irish Journal of Innovative Poetry
A reminder that the launch of the Journal of British and Irish Innovative
Poetry (eds Robert Sheppard and Scott Thurston) is at the University of
Salford on Wednesday 9 December at 4 pm.
There will be speeches and discussion of the journal, as well as an
opportunity for readers and contributors to the journal to meet with
editorial board members.
Guest Speakers:
Christine Kennedy, Leeds Trinity & All Saints
Allen Fisher, Manchester Metropolitan University
Ian Davidson, University of Wales at Bangor
Followed by discussion and drinks.
All Welcome. Free entry.
Address: Room 103, Crescent House, University of Salford, Greater
Manchester, M5 4WT
Directions here: http://www.salford.ac.uk/travel
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=169385893578&ref=share
More about the journal: http://www.gylphi.co.uk/poetry
Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry launch events
There will be a series of launch events in
2009 for the Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry
(http://www.gylphi.co.uk/poetry).
The first of which will be a celebration of the journal occurring at Edge
Hill’s own celebration of its decade of poetics:
Edge Hill University
Education Building
8 October, 6.30 pm
(http://robertsheppard.blogspot.com/2009/09/going-public-autumn-2009.html)
The other two launch events will be standalone. There will be speeches and
discussion of the journal. As well as an opportunity for readers and
contributors to the journal to meet with editorial board members.
Birkbeck
University of London
Main Building (Room B29)
Malet Street WC1E 7HX
21 October, 7.30 pm
(http://www.bbk.ac.uk/maps)
University of Salford
9 December, 3 pm (tbc)
Featuring Christine Kennedy,
Allen Fisher and Ian Davidson
(http://www.salford.ac.uk/travel)
Via Anthony Levings, Managing Editor
Gylphi Limited, http://www.gylphi.co.uk
otherroom.org 