European Poetry Festival 2023 : program announced

A note on : EPF 2021, collaborating with Clea Chopard

An extraordinary poet and performer Clea Chopard is. I was lucky to work with her and I’m happy with how our collaboration turned out. Clea is brilliant with concepts and a really adapt improviser, so we worked up a couple of ideas and let it happen on the night, having met a few hours before for the first time. There was a levity in it, an ease, that is a credit to her skill and confidence. From translation to art poetry to talking performance to a kind of dance, and then being a poem burrito, human gift wrap, live walking poem board…

A note on : Swiss brilliance at the Rich Mix, European Poetry Festival winter 2021 opens

A really great night, a remarkable opening event to the winter 2021 European Poetry Festival in London, celebrating contemporary Swiss poetry with performance and collaboration. We had a pretty much full capacity audience witnessed the new works made for the night by eight pairs of poets. The audience were really generous and by the end everyone seemed proper happy. All the videos and photos are online here www.europeanpoetryfestival.com/swiss

A note on : European Poetry Festival begins in 10 days, with Swiss then Norwegian poets!

EUROPEAN POETRY FESTIVAL : SWITZERLAND
November Saturday 20th at Rich Mix, London
www.europeanpoetryfestival.com/swiss

7pm doors / Free Entrance : EPF 2021 begins with an event centered around visiting contemporary Swiss poets presenting brand new performance collaborations with British-based counterparts, made for the night, at one of East London’s most iconic poetry venues. With Baptiste Gaillard & Vik Shirley / Rolf Hermann and Joe Dunthorne / Clea Chopard & SJ Fowler / Ghazal Mosadeq and Simona Nastac / Mikael Buck and Michael O’Mahony / Vanessa Onwuemezi and Martin Wakefield / Ana Seferovic and Konstantinos Papacharalampos & more. Supported by Pro Helvetia.

EUROPEAN POETRY FESTIVAL : NORWAY
November tuesday 23rd at Open Ealing, London
www.europeanpoetryfestival.com/norway

7pm doors / Free Entrance : EPF 2021 continues with a celebration of contemporary Norwegian poetry, in collaboration. New performance poems made in tandem for this event will be presented across styles and languages. With Endre Ruset & Harry Man / Bjørn Vatne & Richard Marshall / Jon Ståle Ritland & JT Welsch / Maren Nygård & Susie Campbell / Silje Ree & Maria Celina Val / Tamar Yoseloff & Alison Gill / Chris Kerr & Virna Teixeira. Supported by The Norwegian Embassy UK and NORLA. The event will also serve as a launch for Utøya Thereafter : Poems in Memory of the 2011 Norway Attacks by Harry Man and Endre Ruset available from Hercules Editions

European Poetry festival - summer 2021, a mini documentary

Nice to have this small documentary as a kind of gentle summation of the EPF summer 2021 program, which presented a quartet of events in London, returning to live happenings across the city. From our showcase Camarade, with 20 UK-baed European poets presenting new works in pairs at St Johns on Bethnal Green, to an outdoor reading in Richmond Park and events held in collaboration with the Scottish Poetry Library, Peer Gallery and more. All events were free to attend and socially distanced.

The EPF will return in winter 2021, November 18th to December 3rd with events featuring international poets from across the continent, with events celebrating Austrian, Swiss, Spanish, Latvian, Hungarian, Swedish, Norwegian poets and more. https://www.europeanpoetryfestival.com/

EPF 2021 : Event #1 - Writers Kingston in Richmond Park

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The European Poetry Festival 2021 opened with the last event of the Writers Kingston program for the academic year. I led around 50 people from the Richmond gate of the park into the long grass, where some were eaten by insects and others haayfevered, but most seemed happy. We then had over a dozen performances from a range of poets, many local to the Kingston area, many students and member of the popogrou collective.

Four publications were also launched this night, by Sylee Gore in absentia, Nina Fidry, Patrick Cosgrove and myself and Karenjit Sandhu.

Watching the sun go down over the park, it was an atmospheric start to the festival punctuated by a genuine feeling of camaraderie and some fantastic live works. All performances are video’s here https://www.europeanpoetryfestival.com/writerskingston

EUROPOE : a new online course on European Poetry

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An online course beginning January 23rd 2021, running for seven weeks. £200. 
All information & booking at www.poembrut.com/courses

The character of European literature remains a hotbed of innovation – a constant remaking of what we know poetry to be. This ambitious course seeks to introduce the English-language poet, or anyone captivated by a wide understanding of what poetry is, to the European tradition in all its richness.

Over the course of seven weeks, we will trace a line from the aftershocks of modernism, to the arrival symbolism, futurism, surrealism, and more. We explore the constraints that emancipate in the OULIPO movement, the collaborative asemic poetry of the CoBrA group, the onset of conceptual poetry, the birth of Concrete Poetry, the emergence of Sound poetry, leading to the current movement of Performance Literature. We explore electronic poetry and digital literature, and vitally, we present what is happening now – with contemporary poets working in the 21st century. 

We will also dip into the ‘grand’ post and pre-war literary poets across the continent, focusing in on their technique to inspire new works. From Mayakovsky to Akhmatova, Brodsky to Dragomoshchenko, Celan to Sachs, Brecht, Miłosz, Herbert, Szymborska to Różewicz, Ritsos to Elytis to Seferis, Popa to Jozsef, Salamun, Isou to Queneau, Cendrars, Pessoa. Ekelöf, Handke, Saariskoski.

Alongside the dozens and dozens of contemporary poets, EUROPOE will situate the anglophone poet with roads into an often occluded European tradition that will hopefully last long into the future... When the course finishes, an event and publication will consolidate that which everyone has produced. All info www.poembrut.com/courses

EPF Digital #8 - Messages from the Other Side

Thanks to everyone who has supported our digital festival over the last two weeks! To close European Poetry Festival 2020, we’re delighted to partner with the longstanding public video poetry project "Messages from the Other Side", founded and curated by Max Höfler. www.europeanpoetryfestival.com/messages

Six poets from Graz and London each have written short poems for public screening in both cities. These video-poems or kinetic texts are styled as literary "news" for the other city, London to Graz, Graz to London. Projected onto the side of the Forum Stadtpark in Graz and Hardy Tree Gallery in London, passing civilians have witnessed the ludic newscasts of Natascha Gangl, Ghazal Mosadeq, Stefan Schmitzer, Vik Shirley, Thomas Antonic & Steven J. Fowler. The films have been screened publicly November 18th to December 11th 2020 and are available to view at the link above and vimeo.com/channels/nachrichtenvondrueben with German language versions.

The entire digital European Poetry Festival 2020 can be viewed www.europeanpoetryfestival.com/2020 and we will return, in physical proximity, in 2021.

EPF Digital #7 - Three Norwegian Poets

Really some of favourite interviews I’ve conducted, with my friend and collaborator Bard, and the amazing Hilde, below, who will name two lambs after me. Worth a listen to all three pieces here, they are all very interesting, I think anyway.

EPF Digital 2020 presents two remarkable new long-form video-interviews with poets from Norway - Hilde Myklebust, discussing the darkness of nature from her remote farm and Bård Torgersen, chatting about transgression and ritual, amongst many other things! Plus a brand new video-poem commission by Norwegian writer Bjørn Vatne, a musical collaboration with artificial intelligence. More on their work can be found www.europeanpoetryfestival.com/norway

Supported by NORLA - Norwegian Literature Abroad and The Norwegian Embassy in the UK.

EPF Digital #6 - Three Lithuanian Poets

https://www.europeanpoetryfestival.com/lithuania EPF Digital 2020 presents presents new long-form video-interviews with poets from Lithuania, featuring Rimas Uzgiris, Dovilė Bagdonaitė and Aušra Kaziliūnaitė. View the full EPF 2020 online program here europeanpoetryfestival.com/2020

Supported by Lithuanian Cultural Institute and featured as part of the Maintenant series at 3am magazine.

EPF Digital #3 - Four Latvian Poets...

EPF Digital 2020 presents presents new long-form video-interviews with poets from Latvia, featuring Inga Pizāne, Krišjānis Zeļģis, Marija Luīze Meļķe and Lote Vilma Vītiņa. More on their work can be found www.europeanpoetryfestival.com/latvia

Supported by Platform Latvian Literature / EPF Digital is an eight part online festival, presenting long-form video interviews and entirely original poetry films. Unable, finally, to take place in the flesh this year, the festival will present poets from Switzerland, Austria, Latvia, Sweden, Hungary, Lithuania and more, leaning in to what can be created without proximity, generating new insights into poetic practice in continental Europe and creating ambitious film-poetry collaborations especially for this two week e-fest. www.europeanpoetryfestival.com/2020

European Poetry Festival Digital begins - Three Swiss Poets

EPF Digital begins! After two cancellations, I’m happy that I bit the bullet and decided to lean into some proper online content. Masses to come, 9 interviews, 3 films, and more. This opening is just the beginning of stuff coming out over the next two weeks…

An eight part online festival, presenting long-form video interviews and entirely original poetry films. Unable, finally, to take place in the flesh this year, the festival will present poets from Switzerland, Austria, Latvia, Sweden, Hungary, Lithuania and more, leaning in to what can be created without proximity, generating new insights into poetic practice in continental Europe and creating ambitious film-poetry collaborations especially for this two week e-fest.  / The full program is available to view www.europeanpoetryfestival.com/2020 and the 'events' will be released via this newsletter and online every few days November 23rd to December 10th. To begin, we are very happy to present three new long-form video-interviews with Swiss poets to kick off EPF Digital 2020. More on the work of Laura Accerboni, Rolf Hermann and Linn Molineaux is available at www.europeanpoetryfestival.com/swiss with videos below and on YouTube. These interviews are supported by Pro Helvetia and are part of the Maintenant series at 3am magazine.

A note on : European Poetry Festival goes digital

I moved my festival, which was the be the biggest yet www.europeanpoetryfestival.com from April to October to November and now entirely online. Spilt milk, inevitable, fine. What I am excited by is that my suggestion for how it goes online have been met with great generosity by the various poets, friends, institutions and supporters who make it what it is. By the end of November I shall have multiple poetry films, zoomcasts and publications to share from poets across Europe and I look forward to barraging people’s inboxes with the stuff, currently being shot, edited and prepared. This all before I slowly, optimistically begin to begin planning a face to face festival in April 2021, which I will do, if it can be done.

A note on: Sampson Low European Poetry Festival publications 2020

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Very happy to have edited a new triple batch of publications for the European Poetry Festival Sampson Low publications scheme we started in 2019. Lots more information on the books and poets https://www.europeanpoetryfestival.com/sampsonlow

»My Haarschwund« by Franziska Füchsl
Alternative Title : BOOK by Max Hofler
The Patron Saint of Nightly Fire by Robert Prosser

These brand new publications by contemporary literary and avant-garde Austrian poets have been produced in limited editions by London-based press, Sampson Low. With both new translated volumes alongside conceptual collections, these are outstanding representations, in English, of three of the most interesting poets working across Europe, let alone Austria.

All can be bought https://sampsonlow.co/wck-pamphlets/european-poetry-festival-books/

Huge thanks to the poets, to Alban Low and to the Austrian Cultural Forum London and Kingston University, for supporting the books.

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A note on: my collaborators for European Poetry Festival 2019

As part of the oncoming European Poetry Festival I have the opportunity to collaborate six times with six poets from six places. With Maja Jantar, Patrick Savolainen, Fabian Faltin, Morten Langeland, Krisjanis Zelgis and Tom Jenks. From April 6th to April 13th, one week, I do six new performative collaborations. It is one of the most exciting parts of the fest, this constant collective creative output, in live settings, making new things, writing them, negotiating in cafes, changing plans minutes before the event starts, having to also announce the lineup, help all the other poets, work the venue, then perform too. Making new friendships also, I have never worked with Patrick, Krisjanis and Fabian before. Cementing friendships too, Tom, Maja and Morten are all very close and dear friends. It is obvious terrible for them they have to work with me but sacrifices must be made on the altar of poetry.

Check out when and where here www.europeanpoetryfestival.com/programme

Published: Versopolis Poetic Articles #2 - Animals as Humans, can only monkeys laugh?

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The second in my series of articles that are prose poems that are anti-opinion / anti-conclusion / anti-journalistic. It’s an interesting challenge, a long form poetic reflection, for an English person anyway. This one, following the theme of Drugs, is on the theme of Animals.

https://www.versopolis.com/times/essay/730/animals-as-humans

“Things obviously to be regretted in the future. The way humans educate their children. The way humans treat and consider their own planet, their own environments, their own place. The way humans treat and consider animals, as meaningless, stupid, brainless nothings. As food, to be made and unmade for a belly that might be full of whatever it likes. 

What the bloody hell is this massive weapon? It protects us, splits us homidiae from the pan pongo interface. Yet we cannot know each other’s self-consciousness, let alone that which lies in the grey brain of other creatures. A funny assumption begins a history. 

The octopus compared to the human. The chimpanzee compared to the human. The otter compared to the human. The bear compared to the human. 

The human glad in misadventures, harsher and more ravenous than anything you ever heard, anything in all other creatures born days.

Dogs. That perpetually dogs the footsteps of humans. Dogs as a verb. Dogs a best mate. Dogs as a fetching machine. Dogs who need defending. Dogs who defend homes. Dogs eaten in China, South Korea, Vietnam, and Nigeria. “

A note on : European Poetry Festival Camarade at Rich Mix

Nearly 200 people came to this event. That’s gratifying, having run events in this space of Rich Mix since May 2010, and this taking place in october 2018. It was the best attended event in that space. 27 poets from 20 countries showed off new collaborations. I met new friends, some of whom had travelled in from Spain, Greece, Latvia, and spent lovely hours with old friends, from across Europe, but many of whom live in London. It was a collective, as before with the Camarade events, bonding between those making the works and witnessing them.

The actual work was a little different than normal, a little more mixed, but many of the poets, 5 in fact, were giving their first ever readings, as I’d met them through their work in different fields, around poetry, me feeling the poetry in their work, or through courses I’d run at a few different institutions. This created a valley peak feel to the outputs, which can be better, at times, to offer contrast in not only rhythm, but style. But it was a captivating mass, energised, intense, various, experimental. And it bodes well for the project, The European Poetry Festival, and it’s next full festival coming in April 2019. www.europeanpoetryfestival.com/eurocamarade

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A note on: The sex lost in Porn - an article on Versopolis

The theme of August on the European Review of Poetry, Books and Culture is sex and pornography. http://www.versopolis.com/column/656/the-sex-that-s-lost-in-porn

I have the same attitude toward a plot of the usual type as a dentist to teeth.
I built the book on a dispute between people of two cultures; the events mentioned in the text serve only as material for the metaphors.~
This is a common device in erotic things, where real norms are repudiated and metaphoric norms affirmed.                       Viktor Shklovsky, Zoo

It is impossible to track the increased frequency of masturbation through human history into the 21st century. But it is likely that it is at its most frequent in human history. It has to be. Even the most self-loving ancestor of ours, be they 100,000 or 10,000, or 200 years in the past, could not have possibly imagined the kind of sexual stimulation that immediate and unlimited access to pornography provides the average person. There are, of course, more humans than ever before, the world population has doubled since 1970, and in western societies, more people are without a partner than ever before, in context. These are grounds on which we must think of pornography and its ubiquitous but resolutely underground presence.

....

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Pornography wants waste. It may be just watched. It may be something other to those who make it. It may tax the senses of those who use into ineffectiveness. It may permeate mainstream ideas and culture, though far less than people say. It may be a force for whatever moralising or shifting nihilism that breezes through too much theoretical consideration. But what it is, in all it’s remove, vivacity, anger, necessity, absurdity, sorrow and energy is a mirror. Perhaps literally, a computer screen reflecting the figure of human, spread legged or hunched over, trying not to see themselves and their own desire, placing it elsewhere, in pieces, in the past, into the excess of other bodies. Pornography need not insist upon itself then, it is the fantastical growth from the part of ourselves we are as ready to deny now as in anytime during our western past. It is an answer, not a question.