Stephen Emmerson

Cabaret Hrabal

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hrabal_vizual

 

One of the boundless figures of late 20th century Czech literature, Bohumil Hrabal was a novelist, a drinker, a bon vivant, an avant gardist, a railway dispatcher during the Nazi occupation, a traveling salesman, a steelworker, a recycling mill worker, a stagehand… His novels, which include Too Loud a Solitude, Closely Observed Trains, and I Served the King of England, were censored under the Communist regime, yet have since been translated into nearly thirty languages. A survivor of both the Nazi and Soviet occupations of Czechoslovakia, much of Hrabal’s work juxtaposes the darkness of history to the comic, human-scale happenings of the every-day. His oeuvre is as inimitable as his novels are unforgettable.

Through a half-dozen brand new commissions from some of the most exciting UK based poets, artists, conceptualists, theatre makers and dramaturges, Hrabal will be evoked and enveloped, transposed into some of the most exciting literary experimentalists of contemporary London.

Featuring Zoe Skoulding (sound poetry), Sarah Kelly (book sculptures), Joshua Alexander (film art), Stephen Emmerson (conceptual performance), Marcus Slease (poetry), Tom Jenks (literary experiments), Eva Danickova (stage reading) and Lucinka Eisler (theatre), this is a chance to discover, or rediscover, a great European writer through new and exciting works that pay their debt to the remarkable achievements of Hrabal in the essence of their happening.

Read more at the Czech Centre London site.

Stephen Emmerson’s Poetry Wholes

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box_content

Poet Stephen Emmerson worked with if p then q to create the incredible Poetry Wholes. This was a limited edition of 11 copies, all of which have now been sold. However they are available to use in both The Poetry Library or at The University of Buffalo Special Collections. The Poetry Wholes are made of high quality laser cut Perspex and come housed in a box with a set of instructions. Each Poetry Wholes contains 5 templates which you can use to make instantaneous poetry in a range of styles. Choose from the following:

Minimalism
The Sonnet
‘Vito Acconci’
The Ballad
The ‘Slash’

For more see IF P THEN Q

Fjender films

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Held on March 15th 2014, at the Rich mix arts centre in Shoreditch, London, Fjender (part of the SJ Fowler’s Enemies project) celebrated cutting edge avant garde poetry from Europe, centred around contemporary Danish poets. A selection of British poets were asked to write original works as commissions in response to the themes of Morten Sondergaard’s Wordpharmacy,  including Stephen Emmerson, above.

Albion – Stephen Emmerson

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The latest publication from Like This Press is Stephen Emmerson’s book-in-a-box, Albion.

Albion was generated at Inland Studios over 2 days in August during an installation organised by Stephen. Details of the original exhibition are available here: http://www.inlandstudios.co.uk/home/index.php?/projects/abion/

This installation was centred around the work of William Blake.

An 8 foot by 8 foot pentagram was placed on the floor with a typewriter at each of the 5 points. There were 5 visual poems derived from Blake’s writing, and a 30 minute soundtrack that was played on a loop. Participants were asked to channel Blake and let him write through them, but the event was also a way for the audiovisual landscape to be translated into text.

Each box contains:

1 x introduction in an envelope

4 x hand-ripped poster poems

6 x photos

1 x 6 track CD

44 x hand-torn loose leafed transcriptions

Boxes can be purchased for £9 direct from Like This Press: http://www.likethispress.co.uk/publications/stephenemmerson

Stephen Emmerson is the author ofTelegraphic Transcriptions (Dept Press),Poems found at the scene of a murder(Zimzalla), The Last Word (Very Small Kitchen), A never ending poem…(Zimzalla), Pharmacopoetics (An Apple Pie Edition), and No Ideas but in Things (Dark Windows Press). He lives in London. More information about Stephen is available on his website at: http://stephenemmerson.wordpress.com/.

FOOTSY INDEX

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footsy index

A night of poetry taking place at Inland Studios, 1st floor (above The Stormbird Pub), 25a Camberwell Church Street, Camberwell, SE5 8TR. 7.30pm Tuesday 4th June, with readings by David Berridge, Jeff Hilson and Richard Makin.

No Ideas But In Things

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Stephen Emmerson & Chris Stephenson.

Available now from Dark Windows Press.

Emmerson and Stephenson’s non-connotational word tennis match, No Ideas But In Things, is a mass scale invention of possible objects in the future: ‘WAG chaingangs’, ‘special needs fireworks’, ‘ewok sponsorships’. And a cataloguing of the trivia that invades our lives in the present: ‘pop star wheelchair’, ‘princess diana wet wipe’. Not least an exercise in creating the wondrous and beautiful: ‘lucozade onions’, ‘telephone chairs’, ‘barrack obama pyjamas’. Rather than playing this game in the psychiatrist’s chair they played it via text message – and it’s worked to their advantage, they get all the wrong words right. (James Davies: Editor ‘if p then q’)

THE LAST WARD by STEPHEN EMMERSON

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The Last Ward is a series of 6 A3 posters and a 6 track CD. Each track title corresponds with one of the visual poem titles. They should be considered part of the same poem, working symbiotically rather than responding to one another.

1. polygun
2. speech is written in capitals
3. time runs backwards as well as forwards and will one day meet
4. pylons
5. voices in radiator falling through sink
6. you are not a concept i am familiar with

Read more about it and buy a copy here.

Stephen Emmerson: Albion

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Stephen Emmerson
Albion – 9th & 10th August @ Inland Studios, Camberwell
6pm – 9pm
A poem-installation

William Blake was a visionary English poet and artist who wrote, etched, and printed illuminated books. He despised organised religion, but claimed to see visions of angels and devils, and regularly spoke to the spirit of his dead brother.

 

Whilst living on Hercules Road in Lambeth he composed many of his prophetic works including ‘The Book of Urizen’,’The Four Zoas’, and ‘Europe: A Prophecy’.

He also set his poems to music, though there are no surviving notations.

Albion is a poem-installation based on psychogeographical information and psychic and paranormal investigations that explore Blake’s complex methods of composition and mythopoetics. It is also an attempt to reconnect with the political aspects of Blake’s work.

Albion is an invitation to help Blake complete a new poetic work. Participants can channel Blake using a pentagram and a series of typewriters, and by translating the audiovisual landscape into text.

Inland Studios

25a Camberwell Church Street
London

SE5 8TR

http://www.inlandstudios.co.uk/home/index.php?/contact/

James Harvey Memorial reading

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Veer Books / Xing the Line / Writers Forum Workshop (New Series) and The Blue Bus have come together to celebrate the life and poetry of James Harvey, who died last month.  This memorial reading will take place at Birkbeck College on Thursday 19th July, from 18.00-21.00. The address is Keynes Library, Birkbeck Centre for Poetics, School of Arts, 43 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PD. (When you  come in to the foyer, ask the person on the front desk who will give directions – it’s a room on the first floor overlooking the square.) Readers/performers will include Carol Watts, Will Rowe, James Wilkes, matt martin, Jeff Hilson, Holly Pester, Michael Zand, Stephen Emmerson, Juliet Troy, John Gibbens, Keith Jebb, David Miller, Antony John, Edward Carey, Peter Philpott, S J Fowler, Elizabeth Guthrie, and The Children (Armorel Weston and John Gibbens).

Please note that this is a free event.
 
James Harvey
James Harvey (1966–2012) studied biology at UCL before becoming a full-time poet in the thriving experimental and innovative poetry community in London .
His interest in science, especially biology, extended into his poetry. James took part in a forum discussion with Rae Armantrout, Amy Catanzano, John Cayley, Tina Darragh, Marcella Durand, Allen Fisher, Peter Middleton, Evelyn Reilly and Joan Retallack on the interaction of poetry and science, hosted by Jacket 2. He was fascinated by the potential of ‘science in poetry to dismantle existing structures, and then put them back together again, build them up “mechanically” while at the same time each level of complexity is acted upon equally through “the forces of nature,” questioning the integrity of the structure.’
The importance of ecology in his work is evident in one of his best poems, ‘Mackerelling’. This was published in Veer Away (Veer 2007) and subsequently became his first book (Intercapillary Editions 2009). The poem ‘is a movement through water … an exercise in naming as pattern’. As James explained: ‘Marguerite White sent me cardboard cuttings out in the shapes of sea birds she had used for one of her installations, I had been watching David Attenborough’s The Blue Planet and the idea for the poem came shortly after. At the back of my mind was also Bob Cobbing’s poem “alphabet of californian fishes” … one of my favourite poems.’
James was a regular at Writers Forum Workshop and many of his poems have a strong visual element, showing Cobbing’s influence. Part of his poem ‘Living Rock Ode’ (in Freaklung 2010) included a diagram of a marine plankton that he sounded when reading the poem. James read in honour of Jennifer Pike-Cobbing in 2010 with his work featuring in AND13 (Writers Forum 2010) produced to mark the event. Later he was part of Writers Forum Workshop (New Series), his work appearing in its first publication (Writers Forearm 2011).
Veer published a chapbook Temporary Structures in 2009 and included his work in Veer Off (2008) and Veer About (2011) in addition to Veer Away. He was published in the Openned magazine (2006) and Openned Issues 2006-07 (2008). In 2009, Openned brought out an e-pamphlet, Parts Composers, and Kater Murr’s press published a broadsheet From Marx’s Capital. James was featured in the anthology In the Company of Poets (Hearing Eye 2003).
James’s readings in London included the Blue Bus in 2008 with Nina Zivancevic and Vahni Capildeo and in 2010 with Harriet Tarlo, David Miller and Ken White. He read at Crossing the Line in 2009 with James Wilkes, Jon Clay, Antony John and Out to Lunch.
James was also part of a group of poets who travelled to Newcastle upon Tyne to celebrate Barry MacSweeney in a reading at Morden Tower in 2010. James read from his Japheth series, written in collaboration with Edinburgh-based poet Jow Lindsay. Other work appeared in Herbarium (2011), also with an associated reading, or were published online in Greatworks and Jacket, with work also appearing in Brittle Star magazine, Poetry Salzburg Review and the Morning Star.
 
James Harvey discussing poetry and science with other poets in Jacket 2 is here http://jacket2.org/features/archive?page=1
James Harvey’s poem ‘Mackerelling’ (2007) can be downloaded free from http://www.lulu.com/shop/james-harvey/mackerelling/ebook/product-4880571.html;jsessionid=2AF6BA9D292AC56685B11016B5DC1DCF  
Video of James Harvey reading in honour of Jennifer Pike-Cobbing in 2010 http://www.openned.com/writers-forum-jennifer/?currentPage=4  
Veer About (Veer 2011) can be downloaded free via http://www.bbk.ac.uk/cprc/publications/Veer_Publications/Veer037  
James Harvey’s work in the Openned magazine (2006) is here http://www.openned.com/epubs/2009/9/28/openned-magazine.html  
James Harvey’s work in Openned Issues 2006-07 (Openned 2008) is here http://www.openned.com/epubs/2009/9/28/openned-issues-2006-2007.html  
James Harvey’s Parts Composers (Openned 2009) is here: http://www.openned.com/epubs/2009/9/28/parts-composers.html  
Video of James Harvey reading at Morden Tower in 2010 (including ‘Living Rock Ode’ and Japheth poems)