Sean Bonney: two new books

Out now:

The Commons

http://www.openned.com/print/category/sean-bonney

“The work was originally subtitled “A Narrative / Diagram of the Class Struggle”, wherein voices from contemporary uprisings blend into the Paris Commune, into October 1917, into the execution of Charles 1, and on into superstitions, fantasies of crazed fairies and supernatural bandits //// all clambering up from their hidden places in history, getting ready to storm the Cities of the Rich //// to the bourgeois eye they may look like zombies, to us they are sparrows, cuckoos, pirates & sirens //// the cracked melodies of ancient folk songs, cracking the windows of Piccadilly //// or, as a contemporary Greek proverb has it, “smashing up the present because they come from the future”.

Out soon:

Happiness – Poems after Rimbaud

http://www.unkant.com/p/publications.html#rimbaud“It is impossible to fully grasp Rimbaud’s work, and especially Une Saison en Enfer, if you have not studied through and understood the whole of Marx’s Capital. And this is why no English speaking poet has ever understood Rimbaud. Poetry is stupid, but then again, stupidity is not the absence of intellectual ability but rather the scar of its mutilation ////// Rimbaud hammered out his poetic programme in 1871, just as the Paris Commune was being blown off the map. He wanted to be there. It’s all he talked about. The “systematic derangement of the senses” is the social senses, ok, and the “I” becomes an “other” as in the transformation of the individual into the collective when it all kicks off. It’s only in the English speaking world you have to point simple shit like that out. But then again, these poems have NOTHING TO DO WITH RIMBAUD. If you think they’re translations you’re an idiot. In the enemy language it is necessary to lie.”

Out soon:

Openned book launch: The Commons

  • Wednesday 21st September, 7.30pm;
  • Admission is FREE;
  • Carnivale, 2 White Church Ln., London E1 7QR (opposite Aldgate East Tube station (Whitechapel Gallery exit);
  • Readings from Sean Bonney, Ulli Freer, Nat Raha, Steve Willey;
  • A special edition run of The Commons will be available, featuring a couple of extra goodies.

Flyer with full line-up now available from openned.com.

The Other Room Anthology 2009/10

A wonderful thing which is now going to press after finding the bugs in the proof.

Keep your eyes peeled.

Features readers from April 2009-Feb 2010: Tim Atktins, Phil Davenport, Lisa Samuels, Allen Fisher, Alex Davies, Matt Dalby, P. Inman, Tina Darragh, Sean Bonney, Frances Kruk, Craig Dworkin, Michael Haslam, James Davies, Tony Trehy, Nick Thurston, Sophie Robinson, Steve Waling, Rob Holloway, Holly Pester.

More details soon when it’s printed.

25th Feb. Sean Bonney at Edge Hill cancelled

This event will not take place. Any tickets purchased will be refunded. But there will be two other events at Edge Hill:

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: www.jennashworth.blogspot.com and her first novel was published with Arcadia in May 2009: A Kind of Intimacy Rose Theatre. 7.30: £3.50

20th April : Open Poetry and Poetics meeting: Carrie Etter: 6-8.00, venue in Education Block: E22; 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 19 to 32). In the UK, her poems have appeared in, amongst others, New Welsh Review, 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 more experimental work, is due for publication by Shearsman Books in 2011. he is Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing for Bath Spa University.

Bill Griffiths launch tomorrow

A reminder that Sean Bonney, Ken Edwards, Allen Fisher, Alan Halsey, Geraldine Monk & Maggie O’Sullivan will read the whole of “Cycles” to launch the first volume of Bill Griffiths’ Collected Poems.

It’s in Room Clore 203, Clore Management Centre, Birkbeck College (across the square facing the main entrance), London WC1, starting at 7.30pm.

Entrance free.

Via Ken Edwards

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.

Bill Griffiths discussed on this coming Friday’s The Verb

Sean Bonney and I will be talking about Bill Griffiths’ Collected Earlier Poems on the BBC’s The Verb with Ian McMillan this Friday.

The programme is broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on Friday 5 February at 21:15 GMT, and is available to listen to on the BBC iPlayer for a week thereafter.

Slightly more details at
http://www.realitystreet.co.uk/kens-blog/bill-griffiths-on-radio-3

 and more about the book at
http://www.realitystreet.co.uk/bill-griffiths.php

Via Ken Edwards

damn the caesars

Volume 5 of this US magazine is out now and ready to buy, featuring, amongst others, Other Room readers Sean Bonney, Alan Halsey and Geraldine Monk and The Other Room’s very own Scott Thurston. Full list:

  • Roberto Tejada
  • Stephen Collis
  • Margaret Konkol
  • Scott Thurston
  • Kemeny Babineau
  • Alejandra Pizarnik translated by John Martone
  • Sean Bonney
  • Kaia Sand
  • Alan Halsey
  • Alessandro Porco
  • Geraldine Monk
  • Ammiel Alcalay
  • Jeffery Beam
  • William R. Howe

Link

Sean Bonney and Frances Kruk videos

To relive those moments or for the first time here are the videos. I had to chop them up to fit them onto Youtube. The Other Room 7 and Alan Halsey reading in April 2008 are still being transferred but are on their way for sure soon. This is the reading order of the night. For some reason Sean’s first part starts 1. 24  minute or so into the tape so roll forward.

First half

Sean Bonney

Frances Kruk

Second half

Frances Kruk

Sean Bonney

The Other Room 10 – aftermath

Sean Bonney and Frances Kruk gave us a magnificent evening on 5th August.  Tony Trehy‘s photograph of Sean and Frances above.

Richard Barrett has posted more photographs here.

Matt Dalby has reviewed the evening  and you can read it here

Alex Davies recorded the first half and you can listen to that here.

Thanks to all for these resources and thank you again to Sean, Frances and everyone who came along.