Tom Jenks

English PEN Modern Literature Festival

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Rich Mix Venue One: April 2nd 2016 – 2pm / 3.30pm / 7.30pm
35-47 Bethnal Green Road, London E1 6LA
Free entry but signing up for membership appreciated.
http://www.theenemiesproject.com/englishpen

A privilege to announce a major new project – 30 contemporary writers present new works, each celebrating a writer from around the world who is currently part of the English PEN Writer’s at Risk programme.

Each of the 30 English writers will present brand new poetry, text, reportage, performance and film on the day that celebrates and evidences the struggle of fellow writers around the world, in solidarity. The full line up of authors is below.

The one day mini-festival takes place at Rich Mix Arts Centre, just off Brick Lane, London, 2pm til 9.30pm, in 3 sessions throughout the day. All are free to attend but attendees are encouraged to join English PEN or donate to the charity if they are already members.

2pm to 3.30pm
Harry Man on Maung Saung Kha
David Berridge on Dawit Isaak
Kirsten Irving on Nurmuhemmet Yasin
Jen Calleja on Gao Yu
SJ Fowler on Khadija Ismayilova
Dave Spittle on Ahmedur Rashid Chowdhury
Prudence Chamberlain on Patiwat Saraiyaem and Pornthip Munkhong
Robert Hampson on Dr Abduljalil Al-Singace
Adam Baron on Can Dündar and Erdem Gül

4pm to 5.30pm
Eley Williams on Tsering Woeser
Sam Winston on Zunar
Lucy Harvest Clarke on Liu Xia
Stephen Emmerson on Dina Meza
Alex MacDonald on Alaa Abd El Fattah
Drew Milne on Omar Hazek
Oli Hazzard on Enoh Meyomesse
Sarah Kelly on Nelson Aguilera
Caleb Klaces on Jorge Olivera Castillo

7.30pm to 9.30pm
Caroline Bergvall on Sanjuana Martínez Montemayor
Emily Critchley on Mahvash Sabet
Andrew McMillan on Ashraf Fayadh
Andra Simons on Amanuel Asrat
Allen Fisher on Mamadali Makhmudov
Nathan Walker on Mohammed al-‘Ajami
Michael Zand on U Zeya
Mark Waldron on Zhu Yufu
Mark Ravenhill on Mazen Darwish and Yara Bader
Emily Berry on Raif Badawi
Tom McCarthy on Liu Xiaobo

The festival is intended as a call to membership for writers, artists and readers in a time where we face perilous challenges to our freedom of expression and fundamental rights and hard fought liberties, both internationally and here in the UK. As the world changes so remarkably, and so rapidly, and on a global scale, it is vital the political will of our time and this generation of young, dynamic writers is directed purposefully to the work of English PEN, the writer’s charity. The hope is this festival, away from creating at least 30 new members of PEN, begins involvements and connections which will have exponential resonance for decades to come.

The Essex Camarade

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At the Essex Book Festival – March Sunday 20th 2016, First Site Gallery – 1pm to 3.30pm – Free Entrance

The Essex Camarade will see a series of brand new collaborations written by poets in pairs, from the Essex area or attending the festival especially, featuring:

Anna Townley & Lawrence Bradby
Simon Everett & Ben Shillito
Matthew Sheppard & James Tague
Justin Hopper & Lucy Greeves
SJ Fowler & David Berridge
Mark Waldron & Rebecca Perry
Carole Webster & Emma Kittle Pey
Vicki Weitz & Isabella Martin
Tim Atkins & Jeff Hilson
James Davies & Philip Terry

As part of the Camarade, SJ Fowler & David Berridge will also be launching their collaborative poetry collection 40 Feet, published by Knives Forks and Spoons press. More here.

Kakania

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March 31st 2016: Austrian Cultural Forum, London.

The Event: 7pm – Free Entry  www.theenemiesproject.com/kakania2016
The Symposium: 2pm – Free Entry  www.theenemiesproject.com/kakaniasymposium
both take place at 28 Rutland Gate, London SW7 1PQ  www.acflondon.org

The Kakania project returns to the Austrian Cultural Forum for a night of brand new performances, each from a contemporary artist or writer responding to a figure of Habsburg Era Vienna. The great, groundbreaking personas of 100 years past are made new, without nostalgia, but with faithful invention and intensity. Visit www.kakania.co.uk for more information on the project.

Featuring Harry Man on Erwin Schrodinger  ~ Daniela Cascella on Hugo von Hofmannstahl ~ Steve Beresford on Arnold Schoenberg ~ Thomas Havlik on Walter Serner ~ SJ Fowler on Robert Musil ~ Declan Ryan on Egon Schiele

The Kakania Symposium

March 31st at ACF London: 2pm, 3pm, 4pm in 3 sessions 
Preceding the evening’s performances there will be a symposium on Habsburg Vienna, through the kaleidoscope of Kakania’s inventive approach, led and curated by Dr.Diane Silverthorne, a leading voice in Habsburg Viennese studies. The Symposium will feature informal and academic talks about the era, interspersed with poetry and text art readings from poets and writers involved in the first year of the Kakania project, who will also give context to their process. The Symposium will also see a screening of the acclaimed film Altenberg: The Little Pocket Mirror. The schedule is thus:

2pm: A talk by Dr. Diane Silverthorne on expressionist  landscapes in music and art and a talk by Dr. Leslie Topp, on madness, architecture and Vienna.

3pm: A talk by Jamie Ruers on Cabaret Fledermaus followed by readings and discussions by Eley Williams on Broncia Koller-Pinel,  Vicky Sparrow on Margarethe Wittgenstein, Stephen Emmerson on his multi-part performance art response on Rainer Maria Rilke, Marcus Slease on Max Kurzweil and a screening of Joshua Alexander’s experimental film on Paul Wittgenstein, commissioned for Kakania

4pm: A screening of ALTENBERG: The Little Pocket Mirror  A documentary by David Bickerstaff and Gemma Blackshaw  | 54 min

Available on the day will be the two publications emerging from Kakania – The Kakania Anthology and Oberwilding: on the life of Oskar Kokoschka by SJ Fowler & Colin Herd.

ZARF Poetry

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ZARF is a journal of new experimental poetry based in Cardiff, Wales. The latest issue is #2, featuring poems from Tom Betteridge, Rhys Trimble, Rhoda Rosenfeld, Konstantinos Mahoney, Kat Addis, John M. Bennett, J.J. Regan, Janet Kaplan, Emily Brown McKay, Emilia Weber, Drew Milne, David Greenslade, and Andrew Spragg, plus reviews of Jennifer Cooke’s Apocalypse Dreams, Ella O’Keefe’s Rhinestone, and Jerome Rothenberg’s 15 Antiphonals for Haroldo, and a cover by guest designer Mike Basinski. More here.

Datableed issue 3

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Out and featuring Ágnes Lehóczky, Allen Fisher, CAConrad, Camilla Nelson, Christina Chalmers, D.I., Dolly Turing, Drew Milne, Gizem Okulu, Jennifer Cooke & andrew spragg, Jonty Tiplady, Karen Veitch, Lotto Thiessen, Luke McMullan, Mira Mattar, Nat Raha, Nia Davies, Oana Avasilichioaei, Ollie Evans, Peter Manson, Rhys Trimble, Sam Langer, Sarah Hayden, Saul Williams & Sikarnt Skoolisariyaporn, Scott Thurston, Verity Spott.

http://www.datableedzine.com/

The University Camarade

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Saturday 23rd April , 7.30pm: Venue Two, Rich Mix Arts Centre, 35-47 Bethnal Green Rd, London, E1 6LA.

In a unique collaborative poetry event, the University Camarade will present over 10 new collaborative works, premiered on the night, written by pairs of young poets, all of whom are undertaking study in Creative Writing departments at five different UK Universities.

University of Kingston, Glasgow, Edge Hill, York St John and East Anglia will come together, each represented by 4 students. With participants made up purely of the student body and not staff, the collaborations will take place across institutions. The University Camarade aims to bring together the future poets and writers in the UK and show cross institution collaboration as a valuable way of building a community of writers.

For more information, including a list of participants, see here.

Cardiff Poetry Experiment, March 10th 2016

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Please join us in Cardiff at the Waterloo Teahouse in the beautiful Edwardian Wyndham Arcade
on Thursday, March 10, 2016 at 7pm (readings promptly at 7:30)
for the innovative poetry reading series “Cardiff Poetry Experiment”

featuring:

CAROL WATTS
author of
many weathers wildly comes, Sundog, and Occasionals

TOM JENKS
author of
Spruce, Items, and The Tome of Commencement

SANDEEP PARMAR
author of
Eidolon and The Marble Orchard

Books and refreshments for sale onsite. Visit http://cardiffpoetryexperiment.blogspot.co.uk for more information.

Wayne Clements: Lives of the Saints

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saints-200

Wayne Clements, writer and artist, studied fine art at Chelsea College of Art and Design, where he researched machine methods of generating text. His artwork has been widely exhibited internationally. First published by Bob Cobbing’s Writers Forum Press in the 1990s, eight books of poetry and visual work have followed. Recent publications include: Clerical Work (2010, Veer), Western Philosophy (2011, Knives, Forks and Spoons), Archeus (2012, Depart), Variant Lines (2013, Red Ceilings), and Eutropius (2013, Hassle).
Kenya (with Johan de Wit and Antony John) is due from Veer in 2016. Lives of the Saints out now on The Red Ceilings Press.

Poetry, Creativity, and Environment

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26th and 27th February 2016. A collaboration between Leeds University Poetry Centre and the Environmental Humanities Research Group in the School of English

Organisers: John Whale, Fiona Becket, David Higgins, Amy Cutler

This symposium brings together poets, established scholars, and Early Career Researchers to explore the interface between poetry and the environment. It will focus in particular on the creative process and consider how poetry and the natural world are in reciprocal engagement in the business of composition. One of its primary concerns will be to discern whether there are distinctive aspects to the writing of poetry in the context of environment and in the wider frame of eco-poetics. This will include both critical and creative questions, including the politics of environmental emergency, forms and techniques of individual practice, and modes of specific work.
It will take the form of: two sessions of public readings by the poets at either end of the symposium; two round tables, one in which the poets reflect on their creative processes and another in which critics engage with Eco-poetry; a PGR/ Early Career Panel on poetry and environment ranging across historical periods, and a visual display by artist Judith Tucker.

Poets include: Madeleine Lee, Lucy Burnett, Harriet Tarlo, Zoe Skoulding, Amy Cutler, Yvonne Reddick, Melanie Challenger, and Samantha Walton

Critics include: Fiona Becket, Sam Solnick, John Parham, David Borthwick, David Farrier,

ECR/PGE Panel: Carl McKeating, Anna Fletcher, Emma Trott, Julia Tanner, Anna Antonova, Lucy Rowland, Eleanore Widger

The Fundamental Questions

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Thanks to all who came to last night’s Other Room. Part of the evening was an audience performance of Vicki Bennett and Gregor Weichbrodt’s The Fundamental Questions, which you can watch above in all its beautiful cacophony. Our next event is on Wednesday 13th April when we will be celebrating our eighth birthday with performances by THF Drenching, Linda Kemp, Gary Fisher and Roseanne Robertson.

Storm and Golden Sky

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FRIDAY 26th February 2016. Storm and Golden Sky at the Caledonia. Lizzie Nunnery and Scott Thurston. Up the stairs (at the back of the barroom, above the pub name, above) at the Caledonia pub, Catharine Street, in the Georgian Quarter, Liverpool, £5, 7.30 pm spot-on start (but slightly later start than previously)!