Tom Jenks

Lost avant gardes

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Free public lectures (no booking required) to be held at Gulliver’s 109 Oldham Street, Northern Quarter, M4 1LW
7 pm, Monday 20th April

The British Experimental Novelists of the 1960s

Joseph Darlington

For all the excesses of 1960s alternative culture, the British literary scene of the period was surprisingly dismissive of experimental approaches. This talk aims at bringing to life the history of an avant garde movement which sought to revolutionise the novel form and was largely sidelined and ignored for its trouble. Individual authors, particularly B.S. Johnson and Ann Quin, are only now being recognised for their contributions to literature, and this will be the first lecture to engage with the group surrounding them as a whole. Based on four years of original archive-based research, a picture is now emerging of a group committed to tearing down Victorian traditions and constructing in their place a new set of fictional forms.

Word’s Work

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27 April, 19:00–22:00.& Model, 19 East Parade, Leeds, LS1 2BH.

Five diverse writers from UK and Ireland are brought together to read and perform previously published essays, poetry and sound works on the top floor of &Model gallery in Leeds.
Published and artist-published books, zines and audio will be on display and for sale during the evening with readings and performances by

Amy Cutler (Leeds),
Stephen Emmerson (London),
Megan Nolan (Dublin),
Nat Raha (London) and
Nathan Walker (York).

Free Entry and Donations Bar.
Word’s Work is organised by Matt Cole, Chris Stephenson and Claire Potter.

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Amy Cutler is a writer, curator and post doctoral fellow at the University of Leeds where she researches environmental history, historical geography, and modern British poetry. Amy is also the co-founder of the award winning cultural film program PASSENGER FILMS. amycutler.wordpress.com

Stephen Emmerson’s current practice investigates, space, performance, and the placebo effect. His collections include: ‘A never ending poem…’ (Zimzalla) ‘Telegraphic Transcriptions’ (Dept Press / Stranger Press), ‘No Ideas but in Things’ (Dark Windows Press), ‘Stephen Emmerson’s Poetry Wholes’ (If P then Q), and ‘Letters to Verlaine (Deep White Sound). His work has been exhibited at Albion, The Dark Would, Visual Poetics at the South Bank Centre, Pharmacopoetics, Farringdon Factory, Illuminations, and Lorem Ipsum. stephenemmerson.wordpress.com

Megan Nolan is based in Dublin, where she has written poetry, stand up comedy, and freelance journalism. She is currently focused on creative non-fiction and the confessional essay. Megan recently participated in Morgan Quintance’s radio show ‘Studio Visit’ at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, due to be broadcast on Resonance FM this summer. megannolanwriting.tumblr.com

Nat Raha lives in South London. Her poetry includes countersonnets (Contraband Books, 2013) and Octet (Veer Books, 2010) and pamphlets including ‘radio / threat’ (sociopathetic distribution, 2014) and ‘mute exterior intimate’ (Oystercatcher Press, 2013). Her work has appeared in numerous journals, including Tripwire, Elderly, Materials and Cordite Poetry Review, and has performed her work internationally. She’s currently undertaking a PhD on Marxism, queer theory and contemporary poetry at the University of Sussex, UK. sociopatheticsemaphores.blogspot.co.uk

Nathan Walker is an artist, curator and writer. His work investigates writing and speaking in and as performance. Primarily working in the fields of performance and action art, Nathan’s works explores expanded concepts of writing, including durational writing and sound poetry. His work also extends into online projects that consider the event of performance in electronic poetry. Alongside artist Victoria Gray he is co-director of Oui Performance an artist-led organisation dedicated to research and presentation of performance art.
nathan-walker.co.uk

Shadowtrain 43

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April-May 2015

Kate Ashton romps through slipping seasons; Tom Snarsky shakes a tattered image of himself; David Spittle remembers to leave the door open; Anne Gorrick is sleepless and heartbroken; Katherine Holmes meditates on window-wordless birds; Tim Allen finds a lost ticket for the stars; Sarah James drinks it with down with black medicine; Neil Fulwood admires a small, discreet tattoo; Patricia Farrell pushes to the absolute end; Ian Seed rifles through Tom Jenks’ Items. Board here.

Kenneth Goldsmith’s: The Body of Michael Brown

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Conceptual poet Kenneth Goldsmith’s attempt to reframe the Michael Brown autopsy report as poetry has caused an outcry on social media. The work, he said was “in the tradition” of his previous book Seven American Deaths and Disasters. “I took a publicly available document from an American tragedy that was witnessed first-hand (in this case by the doctor performing the autopsy) and simply read it. Like Seven American Deaths and Disasters, I did not editorialize; I simply read it without commentary or additional editorializing,” he wrote. “The document I read from is powerful. My reading of it was powerful. How could it be otherwise? Such is my long-standing practice of conceptual writing: like Seven American Deaths and Disasters, the document speaks for itself in ways that an interpretation cannot. It is a horrific American document, but then again it was a horrific American death.” More here.

Enemigos: a Mexican Enemies project

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April Tues 14th : 7.30pm : Rich Mix Arts Centre: Main Space : Free Entry
in partnership with the British Council, the London Book Fair & Conaculta

New collaborations from Rocio Ceron & Holly Pester, Nell Leyshon & Carmen Buellosa, Adriana Diaz Enciso & Fabian Peake, and Amanda de la Garza & SJ Fowler. Also the launch of the long awaited Enemigos anthology.

Co-curated by SJ Fowler and Rocio Ceron. More here.

“It’s all one enormous blancmange” – an interview with S J Fowler

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“For me, poetry is about the human animal in wonderment about the very possibility of language at all. It should be about refracting and reflecting and mulching the endless and idiosyncratic world of language, its materials, its meaning and the expression of that which surround us all differently. The poet’s ‘gift’ is the skill, attention and uniqueness of this refraction.” SJ Fowler talks to Sabotage Reviews.

Brighton Noise Poets in The Wire

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“A wave of outsider poets and musicians is threatening to breach the UK’s coastal defences with their DIY mixes of spoken word, broken noise and radical politics.”

There is an extensive profile of the Brighton scene in the latest print edition of The Wire magazine, featuring Keston Sutherland, Joe Luna and Verity Spott amongst others.

David Gaffney: A Pop Star Trapped in the Body of a Flasher

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“My girlfriend told me she worked in an office where someone would fly a remote controlled helicopter about and someone else would play a trumpet. That went into a story and my girlfriend now says I stole it from her. ‘You’ve stolen my ideas’, she says. But I didn’t, I just stole her experiences, which I think is all right.”

Other Room reader David Gaffney talks about his work as part of the University of Chester’s Flash Interviews series.

Liverpool Hugs and Kisses

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A collaboration, originally written for Steve Fowler’s Camarade event in London  by exiled Liverpudlian Hampson and domiciled Liverpolitan Sheppard. They decided to take on the city, but like so many, were left haunted by its history and its pubs. An adjunct to Hampson’s famous Seaport and to other explorations by Sheppard in his recent work concerning the city, this pamphlet is the real thing: Arthur Dooley and Ray Charles rub shoulders in a Ginnassium and The Grapes with Marc Chagall and Kevin Ayres.

25 Edge Hill Poets/Ian Seed

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11th March 7.30 at The Rose Theatre, the Arts Centre, Edge Hill University, Ormskirk; £4.50

A Poetry Event of Two Halves

A Quick Fire First Set of Poetry to Celebrate 25 Years of Creative Writing at Edge Hill

Matt Fallaize

Alice Lenkiewicz

Bill Bulloch

Natasha Borton

Scott Thurston

Adam Hampton

Joanne Ashcroft

Tom Jenks

(All these poets are featured on Robert Sheppard’s blog. Go to for summary and links to all the poets

http://robertsheppard.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/twenty-five-years-of-creative-writing.html

 

Followed by

11th March ROSE READING Ian Seed

Ian Seed teaches Creative Writing at the University of Chester. He has lived and worked in different countries, including Italy, France and Poland. His poetry, prose poetry, fiction, reviews and translations have appeared in such journals as Blackbox Manifold, Free Verse, Flash: The International Short-Short Story Magazine, The North, PN Review, Poetry Salzburg Review, Poetry Wales, Shearsman, Stride and Tears in the Fence. Seed’s first full-length collection, Anonymous Intruder, was published by Shearsman in 2009. Shearsman have also published his collections Shifting Registers (2011) and Makers of Empty Dreams (2014).

http://www.chester.ac.uk/departments/english/staff/academic-staff/dr-ian-seed

 

Liverpool Camarade: films

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Films from last week’s event presenting new collaborations in Liverpool are now online, including this by Elio Lomas and Luke Thurogood. Full list below:

Steve Van Hagen & Michael Egan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAZrHb573Mg
Andrew Oldham & Lindsey Holland https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pscQB_8JNY
Elio Lomas & Luke Thurogood https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9WEvvu0dE8
Scott Thurston & Steve Boyland https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5V6ImYwqqU
Robert Sheppard & the European Union of Imaginary Authors Liverpool Camarade – Robert Sheppard & the European Union of Imaginary Authors
James Byrne & Sandeep Parmar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lD6MnII1fAc
Joanne Ashcroft & Patricia Farrell https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yIQx3zSHpE