Tom Jenks

The Dreamers

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Ameena Anjum, Ameera Al-Aji, Andrea Berry, Emma Bolland, Luke Chapman, Helen Clarke, Louise Finney, Rebecca Jagoe, Sharon Kivland, John McDowall, Debbie Michaels, Rachel Smith, Rachel Taylor, Lunzhao Wu
ISBN 978-1-910055-29-8
MA BIBLIOTHÈQUE
130 mm x 190 mm, 148 pages, perfect-bound
£10.00 / 12 euros
‘Writing, Walking, Dreaming… Walking (literally and figuratively, one might say sleepwalking) is explored herein. Walking and dreaming provide ways of knowing a place. They lead to encounters with strangers and with ourselves. The city is the stage for autobiographical encounters; where houses and memories meet; where the uncanny is both home and away; where the stranger leads us down the rabbit hole. There are drifts through Jacques Lacan’s Seminar on ‘The Purloined Letter’ and Walter Benjamin’s ‘A Berlin Chronicle’; urban nightmares; the homesick child; enigmatic staircases; snapshots of the past and lost objects; reflections on writing; seeing words as images; and prophetic dreams. Amsterdam slips into a New York bar, and a dystopian group recounts its anxieties.’
You can buy  The Dreamers online here.

Verbose

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Following a standing-room-only event in February, live literature night Verbose is back a week today, on Monday 27 March, at Fallow Café in Fallowfield, Manchester.

Hailed by the media as one of the best spoken word nights in Manchester, Verbose each month invites three headliners who share a link, be that a publisher or publication, a writing group or project, or a common writing-related place of work. This month, Verbose showcases three authors who are associated with the Centre for New Writing at the University of Manchester: Grace McCleen, Susan Barker and Beth Underdown.

Betty Trask Award-winner Grace McCleen is a writing fellow at the Centre for New Writing, author of three novels and former writer in residence at the Bronte Parsonage in Haworth. Jerwood Prize-winner Susan Barker teaches creative writing and is working on her fourth novel. Beth Underdown has just launched her debut, The Witchfinders’ Sister, to critical acclaim. She is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the Centre for New Writing, which is headed up by renowned author of Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson.

Since its relaunch by prize-winning writer Sarah-Clare Conlon in January 2015, Verbose has welcomed many luminaries of the literature scene, including poets Richard Barrett, Anne Caldwell, Michael Conley and Rosie Garland, and prose writers Jenn Ashworth, Neil Campbell, Nicholas Royle and Emma Jane Unsworth. Man Booker Prize-listed authors Ian McGuire and Alison Moore have been guests, and February marked the launch of David Gaffney’s new novel All The Places I’ve Ever Lived. Upcoming events will feature Costa shortlistee Stephen May.

Taking place on the fourth Monday of the month at Fallow Café (2a Landcross Road, M14 6NA), entry is free and doors are at 7.30pm. See verbosemcr.wordpress.com. Open mic slots are three minutes; to perform, email via verbosemcr@gmail.com.

Walter Benjamin’s lost diagrams

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In ‘A Berlin Chronicle’ (1932) Benjamin describes a lost diagram:
I was struck by the idea of drawing a diagram of my life, and I knew at the same moment exactly how it was to be done. With a very simple question I interrogated my past life, and the answers were inscribed, as if of their own accord, on a sheet of paper that I had with me. A year or two later, when I lost this sheet, I was inconsolable. I have never since been able to restore it as it arose before me then, resembling a series of family trees. Now, however, reconstructing its outline in thought without directly reproducing it, I should, rather, speak of a labyrinth. I am not concerned here with what is installed in the chamber at its enigmatic centre, ego or fate, but all the more with the many entrances leading to the interior. These entrances I call primal acquaintances; each of them is a graphic symbol of my acquaintance with a person whom I met, not through other people, but through neighbourhood, family relationships, school comradeship, mistaken identity, companionship on travels, or other such hardly numerous- situations. So many primal relationships, so many entrances to the maze. But since most of them—at least those that remain in our memory—for their part open up new acquaintances, relations to new people, after some time they branch off these corridors (the male may be drawn to the right, female to the left). Whatever cross connections are finally established between these systems also depends on the inter-twinements of our path through life.
Walter Benjamin, ‘A Berlin Chronicle’, 1932, in One-Way Street: And Other Writings, trans. by Edmund Jephcott and Kingsley Shorter, London: Verso, pp. 293–346
We are looking for submissions of diagrams in response to this description. A selection of submissions will be published by MA BIBLIOTHÈQUE in June 2017, and presented at MISS READ: Berlin Art Book Festival 2017, July, Haus der Kulturen der Welt. The book will include essays by Sam Dolbear and Christian Wollin with an introduction by Helen Clarke, and is edited by Helen Clarke and Sharon Kivland.
The publication will be a perfect bound paperback, page size 140 mm x 205 mm, portrait format. The scale of page must be considered when submitting: that is, as a double-page image in a landscape format, or single page portrait format. If submitting in landscape format ,please work to a page size of 205 mm x 280 mm and allow for a small gutter loss.
Submissions should be made to lostdiagrams@gmail.com. Only a single submission may be made. Please note that submissions must comply with the following in order to be considered:
• Image: black and white ONLY
• Image: sent as a TIFF
• Deadline of 31 March 2017 (midnight)
Applicants will be notified by 15 April 2017, if their submission has been selected for publication.
The editors and publisher very much regret that they are unable to offer a fee. Each contributor will receive a copy of the book.
The Lost Diagrams Facebook page can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/LostDiagrams/

Electric Arc Furnace #3, with Nat Raha and Eley Williams

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A new poetry reading series, in the centre of Sheffield, between the seven hills. Innovative poetries from the South Yorks hinterlands & further-flung.

Eley Williams is co-editor of fiction at 3:AM magazine with prose in Ambit, Night & Day, Structo and The White Review. Her collection Attrib. and Other Stories (Influx, 2017) was chosen by Ali Smith amongst ‘the best of debut fiction’ for this year’s Cambridge Literary Festival. She has a small book of poetry, ‘Frit’, forthcoming from Sad Press.

Nat Raha is a poet and trans / queer activist, living in Edinburgh, Scotland. Her poetry includes two collections: countersonnets (Contraband Books, 2013), and Octet (Veer Books, 2010); and numerous pamphlets including ‘£/€xtinctions’ (Sociopathetic Distro, 2017), ‘[of sirens / body & faultlines]’ (Veer Books, 2015), and ‘mute exterior intimate’ (Oystercatcher Press, 2013). She’s performed and published her work internationally. She is undertaking a PhD in Creative & Critical Writing at the University of Sussex. Nat’s essay titled ‘Transfeminine Brokenness, Radical Transfeminism’ is due for publication in the South Atlantic Quarterly this spring, and she has recently started working with Scottish PEN on the Many Voices project.

Readings take place at La Biblioteka, 70 Pinstone Street, Sheffield. S1 2HP, Sheffield City Centre. BYOB. Doors 7pm. £4 waged / £3 unwaged / pay what you can. Proceeds to poets. All very welcome.

Tribute reading for Geoffrey Hill

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Hill

Fri 17 March 2017, 17:45 – 19:00. Great Hall, University of Leeds, Woodhouse Lane, LEEDS, LS2 9JT. Free, but registration required.

Geoffrey Hill was knighted in 2012 for his services to poetry after a long and distinguished career as a poet and a scholar which included posts at the universities of Bristol, Cambridge, and Boston; and, more recently, his tenure as Professor of Poetry at Oxford. A graduate of Keble College Oxford, his academic career began at Leeds in 1954 with his appointment to a lectureship. He spent the next twenty six years at our University and was appointed to a Chair in English Literature in 1976. During this time, Geoffrey published four collections of poetry – For the Unfallen, King Log, Mercian Hymns, and Tenebrae – works which secured his reputation as one of the finest poets writing in the English language. The University of Leeds is proud of its long-standing association with Geoffrey – which includes the custodianship of his extensive archive – and would like to extend a warm invitation to family, friends, colleagues, and admirers to join in this tribute. Everyone is welcome.

Lightwave: New Performance in Lithuanian Literature

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Lightwave-performers_Free-Word-Centre-2017-03-15-1440x890

Wednesday March 15th / 6:30pm doors for 7pm start / Free Word Centre
60 Farringdon Road. EC1R 3GA : Free Entry but online booking requested here
A unique event celebrating Lithuanian’s new generation of literary artists, featuring brand new readings and performances by Gabrielė Labanauskaitė-Diena, Žygimantas Kudirka and SJ Fowler, a British poet connected to their innovative, collaborative practise.
Both Labanauskaite and Kudirka have carved out reputations across Europe for remarkable writing and live performances to match. This is a rare chance in London to witness poets who are breaking ground in the new European scene.
From Lithuania’s powerful lyrical and formal tradition has grown a culture of experimentation and in this event curated for the London Book Fair, the Lithuanian Culture Institute brings to light the best of Lithuania’s new generation of poets and performers. More here.

The English PEN Modern Literature Festival 2017

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The 2nd English PEN Modern Literature Festival : 30 writers, poets, novelists, playwrights and artists come together to continue English PEN’s relationship with innovative contemporary literature over one extraordinary day. The writers will present brand new poetry, text, reportage & performance, each celebrating and evidencing the struggle of a fellow writer from around the world, currently supported by the English PEN writers-at-risk programme. More here.

The Secret of Good Posture: A Physical Therapist’s Perspective on Freedom

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Paul Hawkins | Bruno Neiva

Team Trident Press

Book launch + performance, by Bruno Neiva

Café Candelabro, Porto

Thursday, 9th March 2017, 19h30

The Secret of Good Posture: A Physical Therapist’s Perspective on Freedom is a 14-page altered pamphlet that depicts the relationship between twenty first century freedom and personal postures. Several processes have been employed in the making, such as détournement and Oulipian constraints. Available in 2 versions. Recommended to be used in stereo (both pamphlets) for best results. Includes easy-to-follow diagrams and instructions.

Links:

http://www.teamtrident.bigcartel.com/product/the-secret-of-good-posture

https://thecontemporarysmallpress.com/2017/01/06/freedom-of-movement/

http://brunoneiva.weebly.com/the-secret-of-good-posture-a-physical-therapistrsquos-perspective-on-freedom.html

http://www.hesterglock.net/the-secret-of-good-posture.html

https://vimeo.com/192550319

The University Caramarade: films

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On 25th February, students from the Creative Writing departments of Kingston University, Oxford Brookes, York St John, Kent, Essex, York and Royal Holloway presented a dozen brand new works on a remarkable, energetic night of poetry showcasing some of the most interesting young poets in the UK. Full details and films of all performances, including this by Abigail J. Villarroel and Carole Webster, can be found at the Enemies site.

Cardiff Poetry Experiment

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cpemarch-2017

Holly Corfield Carr is a poet based in Bristol and Cambridge where she is completing a PhD in site-specific writing practices in contemporary poetry and sculpture. She is currently a 2016/17 Visiting Research Fellow at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds and previous residencies include the Curfew Tower, Spike Island, the British Ceramics Biennial, the Wordsworth Trust and the Bristol Poetry Institute. Her poems have been commissioned for passenger ferries, orchards and car parks and broadcast on BBC Radios 3 and 4. She received an Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors in 2012 and the Frieze Writer’s Prize in 2015.

Childe Roland is a fictional character with some basis in historical fact. His quest for the dark tower across a wasteland mirrors his attempts at spanning the frigid landscape of the blank page with a line of over-extended alliteration and faulty reasoning and disruptive grammar. Published works include Six of Clubs, Stars, Trees, and the play Ham and Jam from Hafan Press.

James Wilkes writes poetry and makes installation and performance work. Recent performances/installations have taken place at The Other Room, Manchester; Godsbanen, Aarhus; Wellcome Collection, London; Battersea Arts Centre, London. His poetry and prose has been published in Datableed, The Wire, Gorse, The White Review, Torque #2, Litmus and Poetry Wales. Until recently he was Associate Director of Hubbub, a collective of researchers and artists exploring rest and its opposites – including noise, work and mindwandering – as the first recipients of The Hub Award at Wellcome Collection.

Amy McCauley: a preview

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Amy McCauley will perform at the next Other Room on Tuesday 21st February at The Castle Hotel, 66 Oldham Street, Manchester M4 1LE. 7 PM start, free entry as always. The other performers are Steven Hitchins and Bryony Bates.

Amy McCauley lives in Manchester. Her current projects include: a book of poetry which re-imagines the Oedipus myth (Oedipa), a book of essays on language, violence and desire (Propositions) and a book of dialogues about Joan of Arc (CaNToS of JoaN). Amy works as poetry editor for New Welsh Review and is the recipient of a 2016 Northern Writers’ Award for poetry. She occasionally writes under the pseudonym ‘Kathy Groan.’ You can find out more about her work at http://mccauliana.weebly.com/, plus at Junction Box and the Stockholm Review.

Bryony Bates: a preview

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Bryony Bates will perform at the next Other Room on Tuesday 21st February at The Castle Hotel, 66 Oldham Street, Manchester M4 1LE. 7 PM start, free entry as always. The other performers are Steven Hitchins and Amy McCauley.

Bryony Bates lives in Manchester and mostly writes poetry. She was 2014/15 Writer in Residence for Archives+ at Manchester Central Library, and has been published in Sure Hope, Ladybeard Magazine, and Spoke: A New Queer Anthology from Dog Horn Press. She is a member of the writing collective Young Enigma, as well as Contact Theatre’s Young Company.