If this was in a tin, it would do exactly what it said on it.
Tom Jenks
Other Cl/utter – call for submissions
“Other Cl/utter is an online gallery space designed to explore “text as art”. Taking inspiration from the visual poetry of bpNichol and Steve McCaffrey the site has set out to examine text (words, letters, phrases, sentences, found text, pictures etc.) as an inherently visual space. Contributors are often artists and poets who view language and its component parts as visual objects that lend themselves to shifting meanings and therefore recognize that words visually contain multiple entryways into understanding. Other Clutter is a space for both writers and artists to dismantle and reconstruct the political and representational overtones of text and art.
Language is inherantly visual, it is already art. Many of you are already using text in your art or art in your text. Other Clutter asks WHY and gives you a space to contextualize the work.”
Robin Blaser
Robin Blaser, one of the last major figures among those who came to public notice via Don Allen’s New American Poetry, died on May 7th at the age of 83. This week’s edition of Jefferson Davis’ Wordplay features three recordings. The first finds Blaser reading in Vancouver in 1965; the second, discussing his work, and that of his fellows, in a BBC interview with Iain Sinclair in 1994; the third, reading at the Woodland Pattern Bookstore in Milwaukee in 2004.
Via British-Irish Poets and Marcus Slease.
Saving Salt Publishing
From Chris Hamilton-Emery:
“As many of you will know, Jen and I have been struggling to keep Salt moving since June last year when the economic downturn began to affect our press. Our three year funding ends this year: we’ve £4,000 due from Arts Council England in a final payment, but cannot apply through Grants for the Arts for further funding for Salt’s operations. Spring sales were down nearly 80% on the previous year, and despite April’s much improved trading, the past twelve months has left us with a budget deficit of over £55,000. It’s proving to be a very big hole and we’re having to take some drastic measures to save our business. Here’s how you can help us to save Salt and all our work with hundreds of authors around the world.
JUST ONE BOOK
1. Please buy just one book, right now. We don’t mind from where, you can buy it from us or from Amazon, your local shop or megastore, online or offline. If you buy just one book now, you’ll help to save Salt. Timing is absolutely everything here. We need cash now to stay afloat. If you love literature, help keep it alive. All it takes is just one book sale. Go to our online store and help us keep going.
2. Share this note on your profile. Tell your friends. If we can spread the word about our cash crisis, we can hopefully find more sales and save our literary publishing. Remember it’s just one book, that’s all it takes to save us. Please do it now.
With my best wishes to everyone
Chris
Director Salt Publishing”
Cutting Room Experiment
“Come along to the Bay Horse on Thursday to find out more about the Cutting Room Experiment. This is the event which could see hundreds of people bouncing around in the biggest Space Hopper race ever, a huge silent disco and a mass dance routine to Michael Jackson’s Thriller just to name a few. Until votes close on Friday, May 29 anything could happen!
With an interactive website, this event wants the audience to get involved, come up with their own ideas and also vote for their favourites in each stream.
And this is where you come in – bloggers are the new influencers and we want you to get involved. Have a look at the website – http://www.cuttingroomexperiment.com – there are 12 streams on everything from architecture and design, dance, pop music, art and craft, literature and loads more to make sure there is absolutely something for everyone to enjoy. Get voting or if you have a better idea, then put it down.
Please join us at the Bay Horse on Thursday, May 21 at 6.30pm for a free pint and a chat. It would be great to meet you.
Bay Horse, 35-37 Thomas Street, Northern Quarter, Manchester, M4 1NA.
T: 0161 661 1041
Mackerelling – James Harvey
“Intercapillary Editions is pleased to present a new publication:Printed: 20 pages, 22.86 cm x 17.78 cm, casewrap-hardcover binding, white interior paper (80# weight), full-colour interior ink, white exterior paper (100# weight), full-colour exterior ink. Purchase (£13.78 plus £4.46 flat rate postage) or Download free eBook.”
from Mackerelling:
mackerel small mackerel small mackerel small
mackerel small mackerel small mackerel small
mackerel small mackerel small mackerel small
mackerel small mackerel small mackerel
DEEPER WATER
small mackerel small mackerel common dolphin small
mackerel small mackerel small mackerel small
mackerel common dolphin small mackerel small
mackerel small mackerel small mackerel small
mackerel common dolphin cory’s shearwater cory’s
shearwater small mackerel cory’s shearwater small
mackerel cory’s shearwater common dolphin small
mackerel small mackerel small mackerel small
mackerel cory’s shearwater common dolphin small
mackerel cory’s shearwater common dolphin small
mackerel small mackerel small mackerel small
mackerel cory’s shearwater common dolphin cory’s
shearwater
WATER
Other Room VIII – the readers
The next Other Room is on Wednesday 3rd June. Here is some information about the three great writers who will be performing. Hope to see you there.
THE OTHER ROOM VIII
MATT DALBY started to explore the possibilities of sound poetry just over a year ago. He is part way through a project to release a CD-R of sound poetry a month throughout 2009. His work has featured on Wordsalad broadcasts. He is currently engaged in a variety of sound collaborations and has two full length records due out on limited edition imprints in Canada later in the summer.
ALEX DAVIES is 25, lives with his girlfriend Gemma in Wigan and is currently working a series of excruciatingly dull jobs while he seeks worthwhile employment. Hunter S Thompson and Kenneth Goldsmith are his best his friends on Facebook and Myspace. He is working on his magnet opium, a beastly collection called LONDONSTONE. His work is featured in ‘veer off’ (Veer Books, 2008) past simple 6 and City State: New London Poetry (Penned In The Margins, 2009).
ALLEN FISHER has been writing since 1962. He has published over 140 publications of art documentation, conceptual work and poetry. He employs interdisciplinary techniques in performance and installation works, drawing mainly from poetry and visual art. Part of his processual work is in the Tate Collection and his painted work is owned by museums in Hereford and Iceland, the King’s College Archive and private collections in America, Australia and Britain. His last one-artist show was at the Kings’ Archive in 2003. His most recent publication is PLACE (Reality Street, 2005). He currently lives in Hereford and Crewe and ‘in transit’
University of Bolton – End of Year Showcase
“The Octagon Theatre continues its run of events in partnership with its Principal Sponsor, the University of Bolton, as the university presents an end of year showcase of poetry, prose and drama by students on the Creative Writing course.”
Wednesday 20 May – Thursday 21 May 2009
Stimulus Respond
“We are currently soliciting contributions for the English edition of the next issue of Stimulus Respond, which will be titled and organised around the theme of Numbers. Contributions might be literally or abstractly related to Numbers, and we encourage, as always, creative and experimental approaches to the theme. In congruence with Stimulus Respond’s undisciplined approach, we welcome submissions from new and established contributors from within, between, and beyond such fields as cultural studies, anthropology, literary criticism, fashion, creative writing, politics, visual cultures, architecture, theatre, film and screen studies, sociology, media and communications and philosophy. Fashion editorials and photography should be sent as low resolution jpegs including credits where necessary. The deadline for expressions of interest is 29 May, with the final deadline being 26 June. Potential contributors to the Literature section are to send an abstract of 200-300 words and an indication of the anticipated word length of the final article (within the parameters of 1000-4000 words) by 29 May. Authors of successful abstract submissions will be required to submit the final piece by 19 June and to be available to make any minor corrections by Friday 26 June.”
Via British and Irish Poets list
Two US magazines
Next Openned
L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Magazine
Complete archive of this key magazine, edited by Bruce Andrews and Charles Bernstein and running between February 1978 and October 1981. All thirteen issues are now available online and are well worth your attention.
Beuys’ acorns
In 2007, Ackroyd & Harvey gathered and germinated hundreds of acorns from renowned artist Joseph Beuys’s seminal artwork 7000 Oaks in Germany, and in doing so began a new long term research project. This will be the first exhibition of Beuys’s Acorns, which explores the agency of ideas associated with the provenance of the trees and provokes questions as to the artists relationship with nature, the changing climate and collapsing economic order. Beuys had a mission. To change the social order. Mostly the money system. Ackroyd & Harvey will ask what the legacy of Beuys’s mission is given the climate of ecological and economic degradation at the beginning of the 21st century.
MESHWORKS
Meshworks is a site dedicated to documenting and preserving video and sound recordings of writing in performance. The site’s title is taken from an essay by cris cheek in Additional Apparitions: Poetry, Performance, and Site-Specificity: “Each poetry reading is a meshwork, a gathering, of differentially inflected components.”
Writers featured include previous Other Room readers Tim Atkins and Alan Halsey and upcoming readers Sean Bonney and Frances Kruk.
Steve McCaffery
Steve McCaffery reading from Carnival, Panel 2, @ Instal 09, Glasgow. 21.03.09. Via Charles Bernstein.
LiveBritishpoetry
A new online group giving information about live poetry events. Why not sign up?
City State: New London Poetry
“City State showcases the work of twenty-seven London writers between the ages of 16 and 36. From hyperlinked walks of Battersea bombsites and guerilla gardening projects to jagged urban lyrics and dark hymns to the East End, City State presents a confident, entertaining and truly diverse snapshot of the best new poetry from London.”
Poets featured include upcoming Other Room readers Alex Davies and Steve Willey. Published 20th May 2009, 192 pages, £9.99. Pre-order from Amazon or visit Openned or Penned In the Margins to find out more. Edited by Tom Chivers
Ron Silliman at Birkbeck
The Poetry that they Don’t Teach You at School
“Poetry readings are good value, for a few quid you get to see three or four poets, often interesting, sometimes excellent. The “sting” of course, is that there’s usually a table of books somewhere near. Whereas a reading by a “name” will see a man from Blackwells or Waterstones hovering with a pile of Fabers or similar – pleasant enough, but nothing you can’t buy from your local branch or the internet – a more obscure group of poets will come with a book table to die for.”
From Adrian Slatcher.
otherroom.org 