SJ Fowler

MOPHE

~ theotherroom ~ Leave a comment

Mopher, where performance, art, writing, poetry, voice, concept and sound meet to wither and perish in order to rise again as something else, more than the sum of its parts. Mopha is a singular art performance / live poetry collective made up of six of the UK’s most accomplished artists / poets – Holly Pester, Patrick Coyle, Emma Bennett, SJ Fowler, James Wilkes and Tamarin Norwood.

Eschewing and mulching the multiple genres of live art and experimental writing, Moffa will premiere it’s work in 2014 at multiple venues in multiple forms.

Exploring notions of fractured speech, aberrant theatre, surreal vocality, performativity and audience expectation, improvisation and its tropes, compressed communication, humour and bleak irony, Moffer aims to create powerful immediate, arresting and unique works of performance that are mindful, and responsive, to their construction and contextual environment. Wholly collaborative and essentially collective, the works of Moffar will pool and mutate the already adept live practices of six powerful performers into a uncommon mesh of theatre, art and poetry.

Here.

Enemies: the Selected Collaborations of SJ Fowler

~ theotherroom ~ Leave a comment

Out now from Penned in the Margins, featuring Tim Atkins, David Berridge, Cristine Brache, Patrick Coyle, Emily Critchley, Lone Eriksen, Frédéric Forte, Tom Jenks, Samantha Johnson, Alexander Kell, David Kelly, Sarah Kelly, Anatol Knotek, Ilenia Madelaire, Chris McCabe, nick-e melville, Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl, Matteo X Patocchi, Claire Potter, Monika Rinck, Sam Riviere, Hannah Silva, Marcus Slease, Ross Sutherland, Ryan Van Winkle, Philip Venables, and Sian Williams.

 

ENEMIES: THE SELECTED COLLABORATIONS OF SJ FOWLER

~ theotherroom ~ Leave a comment
ENEMIES: THE SELECTED COLLABORATIONS OF SJ FOWLER
Toynbee Studios, London E1 6AB (Map)
Friday 25 October
7pm, Free
 Readings with Sam Riviere, David Berridge, Tim Atkins, Sarah Kelly, Eirikur Orn Norddahl and Tom Jenks. From the publisher:
“You are invited to join independent poetry publisher Penned in the Margins for the launch of SJ Fowler’s groundbreaking, multi-disciplinary collection Enemies; the result of collaborations with over thirty artists, photographers and writers – each imbued with the energy, innovation and generosity of spirit that has become Fowler’s calling card as a poet.
Meta-diary entries mingle with a partially redacted email exchange; texts slip and fragment, finding new contexts alongside paintings, diagrams and YouTube clips. Animalistic Rorschach blots and behind-the-scenes photographs from the Museum inspire a poetic that is dynamic but unstable: Fowler’s texts walk the high-wire between reason and madness, the individual and the collective, human and animal.
The Enemies are: Tim Atkins, David Berridge, Cristine Brache, Patrick Coyle, Emily Critchley, Lone Eriksen, Frédéric Forte, Tom Jenks, Samantha Johnson, Alexander Kell, David Kelly, Sarah Kelly, Anatol Knotek, Ilenia Madelaire, Chris McCabe, nick-e melville, Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl, Matteo X Patocchi, Claire Potter, Monika Rinck, Sam Riviere, Hannah Silva, Marcus Slease, Ross Sutherland, Ryan Van Winkle, Philip Venables, Sian Williams”
“An overwhelming assault. The geography is unnerving, almost familiar, then stinging in its estrangement.
Intensity crackles. Tension teases. At what point does collision become collaboration? When do the bandages come off?”
Iain Sinclair

Camaradefest

~ theotherroom ~ Leave a comment

October 26th 2013 , 2pm to 10pm ​​at the Rich Mix arts centre, Bethnal Green, London.

The Camarade poetry festival is a unique and unforgettable one day explosion of dynamic collaboration in contemporary avant garde and literary poetics. 100 poets align in 50 pairs, each writing an original collaborative work, written specifically for the festival and premiered on the day. The 5th Camarade event, and the crescendo of the Enemies project’s first year, this ambitious exploration of the possibilities of collaboration in poetry will evidence the true width and depth of poetry that is happening now.

2pm – Session 1

Jeff Hilson & Fabian MacPherson
David Berridge & Mary Paterson
Chrissy Williams & Nia Davies
Ben Stainton & Nathan Hamilton
Giles Goodland & Alistair Noon
Sarah Crewe & Jo Langdon
Marek Kazmierski &Wioletta Grzegorzewska
Matt Dalby & Steven Waling
Tom Chivers & Ross Sutherland
/ 3.30pm – Session 2
Marcus Slease & Claire Potter
Rhy Trimble & Harry Gilonis
Bea Colley & Francine Elena
Ekaterina Paronian & Sophie Mayer
Pascal O’Laughlin & Scott Thurston
Joel Shea & Ricardo Marques
Mendoza & Nat Raha
Andy Spragg & Joe Kennedy
Robert Sheppard & Robert Hampson
/ 5pm – Session 3
Ahren Warner & Mark Waldron
Matthew Gregory & Robert Herbert
​Julia Bird & ​Sarah Hesketh
Becky Cremin & Ryan Ormonde
Stephen Watts & Will Rowe
Zoe Skoulding & Ondrej Buddeus
Kirsty Irving & Jon Stone
Nathan Jones & Sam Skinner
Oli Hazzard & Caleb Klaces
/ 7.30pm – Session 4
Carol Watts & George Szirtes
Tim Atkins & Jessica Pujol I Duran
Ryan Van Winkle & William Letford
Jack Underwood & Alex MacDonald
Joanna Rzadkowska & Kristen Kreider
Stephen Connolly & Emily Hasler
Sophie Collins & Rachael Allen
Deborah Pearson & Tamarin Norwood
Sarah Kelly & Gabriele Lebanauskaite
/ 9pm – Session 5
Holly Pester & Emma Bennett
Sam Riviere & Joe Dunthorne
Ollie Evans & Robert Kiely
Christodoulos Makris & Kim Campanello
Reza Mohammedi & Ana Seferovic
James Davies & Philip Terry
James Byrne & Sandeep Parmar
Chris McCabe & Tom Jenks

Electronic Voice Phenomena at Bournemouth Arts Festival

~ theotherroom ~ Leave a comment

Friday 27 September 2013

Start time: 7.30pm
Tickets: £7

Book online

The Shelley Theatre

Boscombe Manor
Bournemouth BH5 1LX

Website: artsbournemouth.org.uk

Part séance, part avant-garde cabaret, Electronic Voice Phenomena is an experimental literature, performance and music show that feeds on the corpse of paranormal pseudo-science. The programme of original commissions takes its inspiration from Konstantin Raudive’s notorious ‘Breakthrough’ experiments of the 1970s, where he captured voices-from-beyond in electronic noise. Wickedly funny spoken word artist Ross Sutherland finds himself trapped in The Crystal Maze; sound poet Hannah Silva channels ghostly utterances; electronic music maverick Leafcutter John tunes in to hidden energy fields; all held together by your Dadaist anti-host, the experimental poet SJ Fowler

Featuring
ROSS SUTHERLAND / HANNAH SILVA / SJ FOWLER

with special guest
LEAFCUTTER JOHN

Caesura #16

~ theotherroom ~ Leave a comment

Friday, 13 September 2013, 19:00. Artisan Bar, 35 London Rd, Edinburgh, EH7 5BQ.

Description Bespoke spoken word performances at Edinburgh’s monthly night of racketeers and raconteurs, experiments and experience, synapses and sounds. Avante-jive for the masses.

This month we’re back at the Arty with a very special line-up and some exclusive collaborations. Featuring:

SJ FOWLER

SJ Fowler is a poet, artist, martial artist & vanguardist living in London. He’s published 4 books of poetry and has had works commissioned by the Tate, the London Sinfonietta, Mercy and Penned in the Margins. He is poetry editor of 3am magazine and curator of the Enemies project.
www.sjfowlerpoetry.com

TOM JENKS

Tom Jenks has published three collections with if p then q: A Priori (2008), * (2010), and items, a 1000 fragment verbivocovisual sequence, published in 2013. He co-organises The Other Room reading series and administers the avant objects imprint zimZalla. He has written four collaborations with Chris McCabe for SJ Fowler’s Camarade project. Recent publications include slugs/snails and An Anatomy of Melancholy. A 100 poem sequence with accompanying visuals, streak artefacts, has just been published by Department Press. He is a PhD student at Edge Hill University, where he is researching digital technology and innovative poetry.
www.zshboo.org

ROB A. MACKENZIE

Rob A Mackenzie was born in Glasgow and lives in Leith. His second full collection, The Good News, was published in April 2013 by Salt. His first, The Opposite of Cabbage, appeared in 2009. He has also published a couple of pamphlets. He is reviews editor for Magma Poetry magazine and has been a supporter of live poetry.for several years, founding the legendary Poetry At The… reading series in Edinburgh which ran from 2006-2011. His blog, Surroundings, was possibly the most popular poetry blog in the UK for at least 10 minutes, sometime around 2009.
http://robmack.blogspot.co.uk/

HAL DUNCAN

Hal Duncan’s VELLUM was nominated for the World Fantasy Award, and won the Spectrum, Kurd Lasswitz and Tähtivaeltaja. Along with the sequel, INK, other publications include the novella ESCAPE FROM HELL!, the chapbook AN A-Z OF THE FANTASTIC CITY, and a poetry collection, SONGS FOR THE DEVIL AND DEATH, with a short story collection forthcoming from Lethe Press. He wrote the lyrics for Aereogramme’s “If You Love Me, You’d Destroy Me” and the musical, NOWHERE TOWN. Homophobic hatemail once dubbed him “THE…. Sodomite Hal Duncan!!” (sic.) You can find him online at http://www.halduncan.com, revelling in that role.
www.halduncan.com

Complete Enemies exhibition films

~ theotherroom ~ Leave a comment

SJ Fowler’s epic Enemies exhibition and series of events at the Hardy Tree gallery has now drawn to a close, with the following films online:

Closing night – July 20th

Ensemble reading of everyone in attendance & goodbye http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6yJ3m5x4rs
Sandeep Parmar & James Byrne http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUhLczT7Wl4
James Davies (& Tom Jenks) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUyGoEE94UQ
POW – July 18th
Ensemble reading of Antonio Claudio Carvalho http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8GSWh1v-s8
SJ Fowler & Ryan Van Winkle cover Chris McCabe http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpXH9y9_GVA
Contemporary Poetics Research Centre – July 15th
ensemble cover of Will Rowe  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSC0pYb_iLc
ensemble cover of Carol Watts  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPXx0m84PSI
Voice art – July 8th
Quite possibly the most intense event I’ve been a part of. Truly amazing pictures of the event can be found here, by Alexander Kell http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevenjfowler/sets/72157634618118551/
SJ Fowler: Apologia for St Christopher http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ff5E-MfmiOw
Emma Bennett: Call song alarm  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnRxiqQJ80A
Holly Pester: Cross stitch  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAq41X5zQmk
Dylan Nyoukis, Ben Morris & SJ Fowler: Everybody’s people  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pABB6cMDqxQ
Opening night – July 6th
Here’s a gallery of photos I managed to take during the exhibition events http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevenjfowler/sets/72157634726704534/

Enemies at the Hardy Tree: opening night films

~ theotherroom ~ Leave a comment

Films from the first night of SJ Fowler’s Enemies exhibition and associated series of events at the Hardy Tree Gallery, London, are now online, including the above by David Kelly and Dylan Nyoukis. Full list below.

David Kelly’s (&Dylan Nyoukis’) film Gimme a pig’s foot http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lREN_eKs9E
Ben Morris & Marcus Slease http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=743mFFSVy-w
Ben Morris & Marcus Slease 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z88V6jUMiuA

 

Enemies: visual art & avant-garde poetry

~ theotherroom ~ Leave a comment

The next installment of the Enemies Project will be a two week exhibition of visual art & avant-garde poetry in collaboration at the Hardy Tree gallery (119 Pancras Road, London, NW1 1UN http://hardytreegallery.com) July 6th to 20th 2013, with the space open for viewing 12-6pm July 7th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 18th, 19th, 20th, and featuring seven events over the fortnight.

Iain Sinclair and Ragnhildur Johanns have produced a triptych meditation on Eyjafjallajökull, the Icelandic volanic eruption finding form as a series of wall hung book sculptures – paper forms which appear to be a frozen moment of evolution between the book and the image, crossing Islands north, south and skyward.
David Kelly and Dylan Nyoukis have drawn together the dangling threads of modernist collage and guttural sound art to fashion a hyper cassette tape mural accompanied by super8 scratch screenings and original sonic dabblings.
Ben Morris & Marcus Slease have realised the aberrant underbelly of the gentle metropolis dirge in an acoustamatic tin tin of the city, bringing the offbeat poetics and grinding sonic beauty of London into three dimensions, falling off a wall.
Thomas Duggan and SJ Fowler print a poem in silk – silk fibroin, entirely biocompatible and biodegradable and programmed to disappear, when required, without leaving any trace – 3D poetry in a revolutionary new material developed using the very latest design technology, that has the potential to realise new environmentally sustainable modes of substance – material never seen in public before.
The exhibition is the backbone of our summer programme – four wholly original works of visual art born of radical collaborative practise where six months of exchange comes to fruition in the unique Hardy Tree gallery in St Pancras. The exhibition, and all events, are free of charge and intended as an opportunity for artists, poets and anyone with interest in the field to meet and share ideas along with the work. During this groundbreaking exhibition seven events, innovative in medium and form, will hope to shine a light on the most dynamic and creative poets and artists active in the contemporary London scene.
July Saturday 6th – Exhibition opening night:
performances from Dylan Nyoukis & David Kelly, Ben Morris & Marcus Slease, SJ Fowler, Iain Sinclair & Ragnhildur Johanns.
July Monday 8th – Voice art
Celebrating the non-lingual in poetry / avant garde music / sound art, sonic landscapes without technological assistance, experimentation in unpure human sound – performances from Ben Morris. Dylan Nyoukis. Holly Pester. SJ Fowler. Emma Bennett & more.
July Thursday 11th – Mini-lecture Poetics
Short, informal, aberrant talks given by contemporary British experimental poets – Peter Jaeger on John Cage & Buddhism, Philip Terry on poetry novels & the Bayeux Tapestry, Tim Atkins on London poetry in the 90s, Marcus Slease on travelling poetics & more
July Saturday 13th – ‘Dear world & everyone in it’
Readings from the groundbreaking anthology, published by Bloodaxe and edited Nathan Hamilton, featuring Fabian MacPherson, Ahren Warner, Stephen Emmerson, Amy Evans, Becky Cremin, Andy Spragg & more.
July Monday 15th – The Contemporary Poetics Research Centre
A rare academic entity, the CPRC, based in Birkbeck College, University of London is a hub for avant garde poets featuring Dan O’Donnell, Ollie Evans, Mendoza, Dan Eltingham, Albert Pellicer, James Wilkes, Vicky Sparrow, Mark Jackson & more
 
July Thursday 18th – P.O.W.
Edited by Antonio Carvalho, P.O.W. is a publishing project reigniting the great global tradition of concrete poetry. Readings from Chris McCabe, Chrissy Williams, Pascal O’Loughlin & more
July Saturday 20th – Closing night: a celebration of art writing
Brand new performances and artworks from Tom Jenks, Claire Potter, Patrick Coyle ,Tamarin Norwood & a host of collaborative performances from poets / artists involved in the Enemies project.
All events begin at 7.30pm and take place at the Hardy Tree gallery, situated just behind the British library. Please share the poster/s far and wide if possible.  Contact steven@sjfowlerpoetry.com for further details.

www.weareenemies.com supported by the Jerwood Charitable Foundation and Arts Council England.

Enemigos

~ theotherroom ~ Leave a comment

May Thursday 30th. 7.30pm. Free entry
The Rich Mix Arts Centre.

Tom Chivers – David Berridge – Tim Atkins – Carol Watts – SJ Fowler – Jeff Hilson – Holly Pester
+ Noelia Diaz Vicedo & Jose Gianuzzi Armijo

This unique collaborative poetic enterprise between two of the world’s metropolis’ and their poets will see readings in both cities, in both languages. Beginning with the London event on May 30th, a host of British poets will read their work, written or adapted for the project, followed by versions of a selection of those poems in Spanish, not translated but transliterated, depending on the methodology, means or style of their opposite number in Mexico city.

Thus the Enemigos project will not just commission new poems by 16 poets, but in the transition process between cities, countries and languages, wholly original new works that mirror and and shadow those original pieces. All will be published collectively by the Mexican publishing house EBL Cielo Abierto in late 2013, at the Mexico city reading in November. This reading, at the rich mix arts centre, is a chance to hear a selection of the most interesting British poets read their work and its Spanish language spawnings.

maintenant #97 – tadeusz różewicz

~ theotherroom ~ Leave a comment
A poet who changed the face of twentieth century poetry, Tadeusz Różewicz is a giant of Polish literature and undoubtedly one of the most important poets the country has ever produced. Still writing in his 91st year, his lifetime engagement with groundbreaking poetry, fiction and plays has spanned, and often encapsulated, the seismic tumult of the past century in his home nation. His poetic is the rarest of things, an anti-art that resides still within the realm of the explicable, and the ethical, striding between the utterly personal and the political – often brutal in its beauty and intensity, it is an aesthetic that is wholly his own, unique and unwavering. His first poems were published in 1938, before he served in the Polish underground home army in WWII. His brother, Janusz, also a poet, was executed by the Gestapo. This desolate chapter in our collective European history produced few artists and writers able to even begin to make sense of such destruction, but the eruption of poetry and dramaturgy that followed the war experiences of Tadeusz Różewicz has set him aside as one of the most respected innovators and stylists in modern European history. In the decades since the war he has continued to produce extraordinary literature, winning the Nike prize, the Griffin prize and the European literature prize, and now, on the eve of a brand new translation, into English, of his work ‘Mother Departs‘ by Stork Press, we are proud to elevate the Maintenant series with the inclusion of Tadeusz Różewicz, our 97th poet.

Maintenant #96 – George Szirtes

~ theotherroom ~ Leave a comment

Conventional wisdom would suggest when a poet leaves their country of birth at a young age, for a new nation, they might bring to bear both traditions upon their writing. Perhaps it is possible, though arguably reductive, that the poet in question would be of neither nation truly – forever an immigrant in one and a stranger to another. What seems assured though, is that this sense of displacement, ambiguity of tradition and identity, this fundamental plurality of language and culture, would seem to find its proper place in the intangibility at the heart of a forceful and considered poetic, where such equivocality is not only welcome but perhaps necessary. At the core of the last century’s European poetry tradition lies the notion of trace, of multiplicity, invention, migration and these are the defining characteristics of George Szirtes’ oeuvre. His body of work, 40 years in the making and prolific in that time, has carried across forms, mediums, language and tones. It is the poetry of a singular individual extolling individualism, a poet whose responsibilities towards generosity and openness of spirit seem gracefully self-imposed across writing, translating, teaching, editing and anthologising. Moreover, it is the not the work of a man trapped between nations and histories, but one who has been emancipated by a lifetime’s fidelity to poetry, never bound by a national dualism, despite the complications of being explicitly Hungarian and implicitly English. Author of over 20 collections, winner of numerous prizes including the TS Eliot, the Cholmondeley, the Gold star of the Hungarian republic and the best translated book award, George Szirtes is an immense poet and undoubtedly the greatest translator of Hungarian into English of the last century, if ever. In an wide ranging and generous interview, we present the 96th edition of Maintenant.

Alongside the interview, 3 new poems by George have been published, including one that forms part of his Camarade project commissioned collaboration with Carol Watts

Enemies of the South films

~ theotherroom ~ Leave a comment

Films from the 27th April event at the Arnolfini gallery in Bristol, including this by Emma Bennett and Holly Pester.

Holl Pester and Emma Bennett http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-TiVTTfDuM
Marcus Slease and Jeff Hilson http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr9AP_KpU-s
Patrick Coyle and SJ Fowler http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IF87RJ7BubU
Claire Potter and Daniel Rourke http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQIqZoa-OVA
James Wilkes and David Berridge http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCfpSt7O1QA
Tim Atkins and Mark Waldron http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HhpYQ5JQ7E
Chris McCabe and Tom Jenks, with Sophie Herxheimer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQfa1dRT3Mw

Maintenant Camarade in Bristol

~ theotherroom ~ Leave a comment

Avant garde poetry lends itself to collaboration as language does conversation. This Bristol edition of the Camarade series (previously at London’s Rich Mix and Manchester’s Cornerhouse venues) brings together pairs of formidable and innovative literary poets and art writers to create original, dynamic works for performance. Featuring brand new experiments in form from seven pairings of poets.

James Wilkes & David Berridge
Jeff Hilson & Marcus Slease
Mark Waldron & Tim Atkins
Patrick Coyle & SJ Fowler
Holly Pester & Emma Bennett
Daniel Rourke & Claire Potter
Chris McCabe & Tom Jenks

This is the 6th in the Camarade series and comes with the sub-heading ‘Enemies of the South’ – part of the Enemies project which is supported by the Jerwood Charitable Foundation and Arts Council England. More here.