Mexico : diario de la poesía #6 - Enemigos & the shadow of the Mexica

Aside from the practicalities of seeing the cities of Xalapa and Guanajuato, if there is one profound difference to this visit to Mexico, as compared with the weeks spent here in Mexico City last year, it is a sense that the paradox of the country has somehow been more in evidence. A circle of perception about the place has been completed. This is all in my perception of course, by its nature, incredibly limited and narrow in its vision, but last year was an opening up, a realisation that this is a place defined by things I couldn't have realised without experience. The hospitality, the energy, the physical vibrancy of Mexico. This year then is the closing of that bracket. What fuels that energy? I have no idea, but it is still a place where in Iguana, just an hour or so from Mexico City, a student was skinned and left on the street as a message to not be visible. They removed his face, what is the symbolism of that? He was protesting what he saw as unfair new tests for teachers, ones that precluded people who spoke indigenous languages and didn't favour Spanish or English. He and his 50 or so compatriots, student teachers, were not out against the narcos. Protests have erupted across the country, near the anniversary of 68 student repressions. This has come up in every conversation I have had here since it happened. Poets, academics, students, children; they tell me they are scared to travel, to be kidnapped. A nation where people smile at me on the street, shelter me without asking during a rainstorm, laugh off my lack of Spanish, give me gifts, buy me food, take me into their homes, offer to translate me, collaborate, lead me to transport, carry my bag. An obvious contradiction? A paradoxical place to such an extent it is a cliche. I have spent two weeks here, and being so sick right of the heart of that stay, losing my normal physical confidence, this has got into my breath. It has been a different experience, not bad, not at all. It has been magnificient. But not easy either. Not casual and light. 

 I said farewell to Nell and Bee and the others who made up the official part of my trip, having chosen to stay on an extra series of days and see those I met last year and moved into a new, smaller, more ordinary hotel in Roma, a more youthful neighborhood. No one helping me now, strange to get used to cars picking you up and people shepherding you to events. I had more time to write and rest, still a bit weak. The first day 'alone' I did three readings and must have met a hundred new friends. 
First we read in the Condessa, launching the beautifully produced Enemigos anthology, what began my ties with Mexico in the first place really. We had 8 poets from London and 8 from Mexico City butcher each others works with the radical translations at the heart of the collection. To see it in print was very gratifying. I saw Ari Chavez Chacon again, who helped me so much in 2013, a brilliant artist herself and a friend, and Jack Little, the Newcastle born poet who has lived here for 4 years, and who runs the Ofi press. 

 After a long lunch where I really got to talk with the wonderful Amanda de la Garza and Rodolfo Matas, and Ana Franco Ortuna, we headed to the Casa del Lago, an amazing and much lauded poetry venue right on the lake of the Chapultepec park, in the heart of the city. Apparently this ornate lakehouse had housed everyone from Paz onwards, and we set up as a panel to read from and talk about Enemigos. I met Gaspar Orozco here too, diplomat and poet and punk singer, not something I'd think possible in England. The audience was made up of families, a photography class and well wishers. I found it enjoyable, still full of cold, to be rather light hearted with the discussions, but reading the work of my dear friend Tom Raworth I felt quite sad he wasn't with me in the city he resided in during the 70s. We finished the day in a mescal bar, the Mexican hospitality raging as a thunderstorm wracked the city. 

 I spent much of the next few days simply exploring the city, walking for many hours at a time, intermittently meeting friends like Jack, Ari and Rocio Ceron, and others, and getting to know Roma and la Condessa. It's been a long time since I've had days almost alone, unbusied. All things require adjustment. I spent the last day, the day I write this on, mostly in the anthropological museum. Famed for its grandiose architecture and epic displays, I spent the better part of 5 hours wandering the halls. But again the shadow came back. It was too intense, I became almost entranced, a bit sick even. I had to read every panel almost, to satisfy myself. I didn't take a single picture. There is a richness to the rendering, the animals, the faces of death, to the dwarfed gurning humans, to the very process and intent of the artwork of the indigenous civilisations of Mexico that is like the sensation I had experienced when being unable to escape the potential of the worst suffering and fear and occlusion that this country can produce. It is something of an intoxicant, and for now, just for now, I am okay with going home to London,

Mexico : diario de la poesía #5 - Moctezuma's revenge & the Cervantino festival in Guanajuato

Into a muddy hole disappeared two or three days of my life in Mexico City. Travelling from Xalapa, I felt unsteady, but not concerned. The drive back into the megapolis was a chance to watch the country pass. Once installed into the Fiesta Americana - a massive, 25 floor corporate hotel sat right on the Reforma, the kitsch boulevard that centres Mexico City, once bullied into lifts with portly groups of men with greased back hair and far less gentle manners, once I'd eaten from the rich and seemingly endless buffet, the nausea and stomach ache turned into something else. 

 I've been very ill travelling before. It's always a lonelying experience. You are a long way away from those you love, as you are sensorially, from comfort. It is a mental game. In the end I had trouble walking, it not just being projectile but with cramps, migraines and so on, and before we were to leave for Guanajuato, they had to have a doctor visit me. I was faced with a difficult decision as to whether to attend or not, but with such ripe disdain for that hotel room, that plush open room that sat on the 17th floor and took in most of Mexico City, that I hated, I went. Much is owed in easing my own will to those around me, the writers Nell Leyshon (who kindly ((!)) took this photo of me as the doctor visited) and Bee Rowlatt, the British Council staff, the organisers of the Cervantino and those back home who relentlessly insisted on getting me better when I wanted to crawl into a corner.

 A five hour car journey then, still ill, but corked, listening to Veracruzian music sent me by new friends in Xalapa just gone. Into Guanajuato, an impossibly beautiful place. But I was blind to it, and hid again for another lost day, trying to get past the nausea. Student protests raged outside my room, hundreds, like thousands across Mexico, protesting the horrific torture and murder of a group of protesting students in Iguana. The brilliant Ioan Grillo wrote this article on the awfulness of what happened http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/10/opinion/mexicos-deadly-narco-politics.html?_r=0

 I woke up better yet, and being able to know the date, and the place. I walked around Guanajuato, also being to eat more than a bite for the first time in days. The city is unbelievable, every corner a scene in a film, every street a picture. Every colour on the buildings, rising up on hills and littered with parks and markets and small alleys, and tunnels. The city is build on tunnels that bore through the hillside, genuinely subterranean streets that hold bus stops and pedestrian walkways see cars pour through and pop out in brilliant sunshine. I talked with people again, bought things, felt like a person once more.
My nurses and friends and buoys, Nell Leyshon and Bee Rowlatt, and I, then attended our event, at the University, for the grand Cervantino festival. This is the 42nd year and the festival goes on for three weeks. That we were staying just a day seemed incongruous. We were self panelling on Shakespeare, and it turned out marvelous I thought. We all come from different backgrounds, different professions, different modes of thought. And it complimented. I stressed the need to interrogate the value of Shakespeare, pedagogically, to make sure the relationship was personal and not assumed, earned and not because the value of his works were so overbearingly lauded. I also talked about his role in the future, which was the theme, being the same as it was in the past, really, but that there were immense things to be taken from his prolific nature etc etc.. It went well and the students were positive. 
More time allowed me to visit Diego Rivera's house and the old market, before we bundled into a van for a brutal 6 hour crawl back south across Mexico into Mexico city once again. I was well and truly well then, for if I hadn't have been, I would've capitulated. Instead Nell and I shared the backseat and confused the Mexican car with conversation.

Issue #3 of Anglaise Actuelle on Recours au Poeme = James Byrne

http://www.recoursaupoeme.fr/essais/un-regard-sur-la-po%C3%A9sie-anglaise-actuelle-3/marilyne-bertoncini Delighted to see the third of this translation series I edit up online with Recours au Poeme. This time the brilliant James Byrne.

L'Un/L'Autre
L'un soupire profondément au téléphone
L'autre verse les sables mouvants de l'assassin
L'un quitte la garnison seul comme une balle
L'autre emplit les tubes blancs de kérosène
L'un est observé de la vitre en frontière
Un autre défend de la noirceur des arbres
L'un trinque avec l'ennemi
Un autre imagine la mort sur une route migratoire
L'un s'acharne sur celui qui est  assis au piano
Un autre s'abrite à l'ombre d'un figuier
- See more at: http://www.recoursaupoeme.fr/essais/un-regard-sur-la-po%C3%A9sie-anglaise-actuelle-3/marilyne-bertoncini#sthash.ZF6LJp7T.dpuf

Mexico : diario de la poesía #4 - Hay Xalapa ends

The time compression and expansion that occurs when so much is going on, so many conversations are being had, effects the ability to realise it is about to end, that it only lasts a very finite number of days. This last day was as wonderful as the rest, but tinged with the sadness of it ending. The experiences have not just been engaged and intense, but also rich, very subtle at times, the connections between people that happen when so many are brought together with varying interests of a similar outlook. 

We began by seeing Tom Bunstead chair a talk between Adam Thirlwell and Hari Kunzru, and the open, conversation nature of their discussion fitted very much with the sunday morning feeling of Xalapa, gentle and laid back. We split from there, and I joined those in the discussion and Katie Kitamura, who shares my passion for Mixed Martial Arts, for a long lunch, being able to see more of the city centre and talk with novelists whose work I have followed for awhile. All very humble, funny, affable people. 

Returned to the hotel I talked more with the volunteers who really have been the backbone of the festivals daily vibrancy and friendliness. They are a massive cadre of students from Veracruz university, all with amazing humour and kindness, they tolerated my repeated attempts at making them laugh. I then went to what I thought a simple interview but turned out to be the beginning of what I am now sure will be a long friendship. One of the volunteers, Montserrath, and a photographer Citlalxochitl, took me to the oldest park in Xalapa, the botanical park. It was tropical, with enormous trees, and fenced in, in a valley, it seemed like a forgotten world. It was teeming with families and couples on the sunday, and there to have my picture taken I soon discovered Citlal was Nahuatl and the daughter of the wonderful poet Juan Hernandez Ramirez, who I had read alongside. We spent a long afternoon in the park, talking, through Montserrath mostly, Citlal and I not sharing a language, as she posed me from place to place, on bridges, playgrounds, with giant fish and turtles, and murals of animals. We bumped into friends of Citlal, who talked with us and I felt completely removed from my own world and for the first time, the day before I am to leave, completely inside of Xalapa. 

After a horrid gym session while carrying a cold, and another beautiful dinner of Mexican food, we attended the absolutely packed Concha Buika concert. The Mexicans went mad for her, and she was like nothing I've seen before. Half black Spanish Nina Simone, half scaling melodrama. Real moments of brilliance, others of excess for my British sensibilities. But it was immense as an experience, overpowering at times. I had to stand because my legs were cramping and bumped into Montserrath and we found Citlal, who was photographing the event, and we all sat on a balcony watching. Montserrath whispered translations to me as Concha Buika joked and spoke through her work. The concert ended and after hugging and saying thank you to a dozen or so volunteers, students and people who recognised me from my reading, I said goodbye to Citlal and Montserrath. They both had gifts for me, even after the amazing hospitality I had experienced. A book, and from Citlal, a handmade Nahuatl necklace. I felt like it was the last of a line of privileges I was profoundly aware I was lucky to be receiving. I said goodbye too to many friends I've made from England, America, Canada, Chile and the rest of the world and went back to my room to listen to Daniel Johnston and feel pleasantly sad.

Mexico : diario de la poesía #3 - Hay Xalapa continues

A day of remarkable discoveries, feeling more like a witness to worlds in worlds, now my participation in the festival itself is done. Still somewhat in space from the size and intensity of my reading the night before, still processing it, I joined some new friends to watch a wonderful panel on indigenous cultures in Canada and in Mexico. I had spoken in depth to the Canadian delegation through the week, the extraordinary work of Cheryl Suzack and Ingrid Bejerman, their activism and scholarship was worn very lightly, and hearing Juan Hernandez Ramirez of the Nahuatl too, was fascinating. This was a real meeting point between their concerns, and I spoke to them at length afterward, note taking throughout.

 Nell Leyshon and I then fulfilled our promise to our vehement hosts and were dropped off for one of the few times without a chaperone to visit the anthropological museum. It was breathtaking, and having worked in a museum for seven years that is a statement, for I have developed a deep suspicion about museum's and their function, my first book was about that really, and yet this place was more a park, an architectural project and a state of experience than a traditional museum. The ancient cultures of Mexico were not portrayed singularly, their entire culture, and its truly unfathomable artistic skill was expressed. I was left with an intense sense of their humour, and play, their families, their subtlety, and the embracing of mortality. It was too much after only minutes, I needed more time to try to understand the objects. Nell and I ate in the cafeteria there too, a simple one room cafe, where a lady cooked us homemade food in a tiny kitchen.

 We walked down from the museum, and thanks to Nell's intrepid nature and excellent Spanish, managed to visit the Panteon Xalapeno, the old cemetary of the city. Each grave was a complex in and of itself, a war of styles and colour, from the brilliantly tasteless to the architecturally avant garde. We were told families commission architects and construction workers to build these tombs and visit them so often they are like extensions of a home space. A privilege to witness, so removed as it was from a British cemetary.

 I needed a few hours to write, and to recover, and train, and managed to have a long and rolling conversation with the brilliant Forrest Gander, whose reputation for generosity is well deserved next to the high esteem he is held in as a poet, and in Mexico, as one of the very most important translators. He could not have been more decent and down to earth. I was soon out again after dinner to see Daniel Johnston in concert. I had watched the documentary about his life many years ago, and had listened to his music then, but his performance was so beautiful, so vulnerable and open, I wasn't expecting to be moved so much by it. It was almost wounding, and made me, for the first time physically, miss home and the people I love. His performance was very much like this one I found online.  After a brief trip to the hotel we all bundled off to a party thrown by the publisher Sexto Piso, who have a reputation for being very generous and very trendy. It was actually more of a celebration for the local people, the students really, who have volunteered the make the festival so amazing. It was good to see another side of the city again, not one I longed for, the hip nightlife, but fun none the less. I spoke to Forrest, the lovely Bee Rowlatt and Nell, and a lot of the young Mexicans, managing to get them to open up about their lives, and the effect the drug violence has had on their childhood. Their unrelenting warmth and friendliness seems to be in spite of the horror they have often witnessed, all of them had stories of hearing or witnessing terrible violence. Very humbled once again, and feeling very sober (the party had free tequila) I went home trying to quiet my mind.

Mexico : diario de la poesía #2 - Hay Xalapa

The intensity of a day filled with conversation accelerates time while maintaining recollection, or awareness of time passing, as the very opposite. So it feels like I’ve been in Xalapa a week, and yet the day passes so rapidly I have write it down to remember it.
The day began with media stuff, not exactly a commonplace feature of my life as an experimental poet barely known in England let alone elsewhere. Five interviews, everyone was conducted people who had deeply researched and engaged with my work, which I found absurd and exhilarating, and everyone then railed off then into wide discussions about the place of the human being behind literature, language and my lack of it, ethics, humour and other lofty things. Always Mexico, its openness, hospitality, the warmth of its people defined these conversations. A lot was said about generations in Mexico, shifting understanding in a young and powerful and troubled country, or so it would seem. They ended up very personal, close engagements, and lasted hours all in.
The hotel has an in house gym, all shiny and empty and mine, so I punished myself a wee bit before having a lunch with post gym lobster face clean sweats and meeting the remarkably humble, intelligent people who seem to populate every room I eat in, every bus I ride in. I was then ferried in Xalapa to watch a wonderful event that saw Nell Leyshon in conversation with Pura Lopez Colome. Another packed event, the beautiful contrast between Pura’s academic erudition and Nell’s unpretentious engagement with instinct, narrative and story led practise, and way of communicating generally, really accentuated the power of both women. Nell’s work seems to be defined in the same way mine is, that it is occurs as an extension of a very specific and decisive life choice, a very distinct identity that Nell inhabits with great credit to her, most especially as a hugely successful writer, because it is defined by brevity of spirit, humour, passionate engagement with fundamental narrative ideas and a clear, untrammelled sense of clarity. Lovely to discover this, and more about her heritage in Somerset, near my own home in Devon, over the hour.

We had a small break in a bar and then returned to the Casa del Lago, right by the lake, in a rainstorm for my second and final event. A poetry pantheon, 9 poets sat on thrones in front of a massive audience, at least 200, maybe up to 400 crammed into two levels and a balcony area, while each of us shared a short burst of work. I was the only one who read in English, but the audience were incredible, so attentive, so generous, and some of the other poets were remarkable. Forrest Gander, whose work and translations I’ve followed for years, was brilliant, and Joumana Haddad, was a revelation, an activist, a poet, a polyglot, she read in Spanish, despite being from Beirut, and killed the audience with her delivery and wit. It was an amazing mix of ages and styles, but really that’s what I always seek, so was delighted.
For my own part I read my poem Atacama, about Chile under Pinochet, and Que Bonitos Ochos Tienes, which is about Cartels in Mexico. I tried, as I often do, to be gentle and jokey in the intro, before my work, which is always depressing. It seemed to strike a chord with people, and the kindness of the people who came to watch, who came to speak to me, take pictures, sign books and stuff like that, made me feel very humbled, embarrassed and even a bit vulnerable, such was the openness and generosity. I was having picture requests with children and stuff. Quite mad, but enjoyable and resonant in its moderation. Another beautiful day, an unforgettable day, as all seem to be for me in Mexico

Camaradefest : October 25th : the full lineup

Camaradefest
100 poets. 50 pairs. one day.
october saturday 25th
the rich mix arts centre : main space
12 noon til late​​​​ : free entry
http://www.richmix.org.uk/whats-on/event/camaradefest-ii/
Starting at 12 noon and running all day, Camaradefest w​​ill present 50 brand new collaborative works involving 100 poets working in pairs. A unique one day festival of collaborative poetry. There will a book table to browse and chat with the poets, & lengthy intermissions between each of the five sessions in which to do so. Please come, stay the day and find below the remarkable lineup of poets, writers and textual artists. Everything is free to attend, bring friends, spread the word.http://weareenemies.com/camaradefestii.html
12noon
John Clegg & Holly Corfield Carr
Nick Murray & Aki Schilz
Sarah Dawson & Robin Boothroyd
Jonah Wilberg & Lucy Furlong
Vera Chok & Sophie Herxheimer
Jon Stone & Harry Wooler
Paul Hawkins & TBA
Cali Dux & Simon Pomery
Angus Sinclair & Laura Elliott
​Ross Sutherland & TBA
2pm
George Szirtes & Carol Watts
Gareth Rees & Gary Budden
Robert Kiely & Doug Jones
Mike Saunders & Emilia Weber
​Tamar Yoseloff & Claire Crowther​
Andy Spragg & Emma Hammond
Alan Halsey & Geraldine Monk
Nia Davies & Sarah Howe
Tim Allen & Richard Barrett
Prudence Chamberlain & Eley Williams
4pm
Hannah Silva & Andra Symons
Harry Man & Kirsten Irving
Vicky Sparrow & Dave Spittle​
​Agnes Lehoczky & Astrid Alben​
Isobel Dixon & Claire Trevien
Edmund Hardy & Amy Cutler
Ollie Evans & Becky Varley Winter​
Rebecca Tamas & Martin Jackson
Sarah Kelly & TBA
Jow Lindsay & Anne Laure Coxam
​
7pm
Colin Herd & Iain Morrison
Marcus Slease & JT Welsch​
​James Wilkes & Ariadne Radi Cor
Billy Ramsell & ​TBA
Sophie Collins & Livia Franchini
​Nikolai Duffy & Rhys Trimble
Ryan Van Winkle & TBA​
Calum Rodger & Anthony Autumn
Cristine Brache & Holly Childs
Lila Matsumoto & Samantha Walton
​
9pm
James Davies & Philip Terry
Nathan Jones & Christodoulos Makris​​​​​​​
​Zuzana Husarova & Olga Pek
​Alison Gibb & Kimberley Campanello
Sean Bonney & nick-e melville
​Luke Allan & Graeme Smith​
Sam Riviere & Crispin Best
James Byrne & Sandeep Parmar
Tim Atkins & Jeff Hilson
​Holly Pester & Emma Bennett

ZimZalla : an exhibition at the Hardy Tree gallery

I'm proud to say running concurrently with the fest will be ZimZalla: an exhibition at the Hardy Tree. Leading the way in innovative poetry publishing for last number of years, the Enemies project is delighted to present an exhibiting of all 25 of the ZimZalla poetry objects, evidencing that there is nothing in the UK poetry scene quite like ZimZalla. Visithttp://zimzalla.co.uk/ to peruse their wares and http://hardytreegallery.com/ for more information on the wonderful gallery.
“zimZalla is a unique publishing imprint specialising in literary objects. With twenty-five objects published to date, including poetry tea bags, greetings cards, scented chocolate bars and a backwards book in a miniature coffin, zimZalla celebrates the handmade, the ephemeral and the eccentric. zimZalla at the Hardy Tree, co-curated by The Enemies Project, is a never before available opportunity to see all twenty-five objects in one place at one time. A true trip down the rabbit hole.”
There will be two events will celebrate the exhibition, both free to attend, both at the Hardy Tree gallery just behind the British Library and Kings X.
October Saturday 18th. 7.30pm: a celebration of Red Ceilings press and the exhibition special view. Readings from Andrew Spragg, Stephen Emmerson, Alison Gibb & Tom Jenks, Leanne Bridgewater, Tom Watts, MJ Weller & more
October Monday 27th. 7.30pm: ZimZalla in performance, readings from the TRYIE Collective (Zuzana Husarova, Olga Pekova +), Tom Jenks, Lucy Harvest Clarke, Kim Campanello, Ryan Van Winkle, Iain Morrison, Christodoulos Makris & more

Mexico : diario de la poesía #1 - Hay Xalapa begins

I know I have to start writing about the first day in Mexico after the first day, or it will all pass me by. Such is the pace, it feels I've been here many days, not one. And at the end of the first event I did, a man asked me about this blog, said he read it, it was inspiring, or something like that, and so I now I realise people read it, so I have to keep doing it.
I flew to Mexico City from London watching shite action films I'd been saving, 4 and a half of them. I met Nell Leyshon, also here with the British Council for both Hay Xalapa and Cervantino, and we immediately hit it off. An extraordinary woman from the first, funny as hell, kind, humble, passionate and genuinely interesting. Boded well. We were plopped in the airport Ramada in Mexico city, and talked later into the night over Chalapas, despite being knacked.

 The next morning we were bussed down from Mexico city to Xalapa, with other translators and authors including the brilliant Tom Bunstead, covering the beautiful, open plains and mountains of the country. We immediately felt the full force of organisational fury from Hay. It is so amazingly organised, with an ocean of volunteers and organisers, who absolutely ensure you are where you need to be and when. I've never experienced such size in a festival. I had time to use the swanky hotel gym and go to the biggest supermarket I've ever visited, which had an in house bakery and a pork scratchings aisle, before I had to depart for my first event.

 Nell and I were not allowed to make our own way, so a poor Spanish speaking student Itzel had to ferry and walk us through the town. We tried to gently escape, the narrow, colourful colonial architecture of Xalapa, its frequent arts centres, live public music and friendly laid back vibe taking us off the rush route to prep me for the event. 


This was the launch of the Enemies anthology, after a few years work, and the book really delivered. Just a beautiful book, so proud of it really. I was on a panel with Rocio Ceron, a force of nature, and Pura Lopez Colome, just an incredible generous and vital person and writer. I spoke in English and the others in Spanish, so I had a nodge in my ear that connected to a live translator. It led to some funny moments that only I could hear as the translator flapped to keep up. Our discussion was really rich, I tried to be funny, failing just enough that I ended up feeling really humbled by the concentrated questions from a large and attentive audience, and some overly kind words at the signing of the anthology afterwards. Pura and Rocio did amazing jobs, and the Hay people really delivered a large audience, many of whom were students and were taking notes, which made me laugh. And the last question was about this blog.

 Nell and I nipped back to the hotel to try and grab free swankfood before heading back out for an opening thing, like a wine thing, which will never be my type of evening. I saw Rocio, a few nice people, had a chat, scarpered quick with the Mexican dead pan lead singer of the ropey band started covering George Harrison, and we killed the night talking about journalist murders in this state of Veracruz with other friends and eating Mole chicken.

Forward prize 2015 anthology & commended poem

Very happy to see Kei Miller win the Forward prize, after spending a week with him in Iraq in May, he's as decent and powerful as his poetry in person. Happy too my poem Trepidation, written for my time with Wortwedding gallery in Berlin, was commended, and thus included in the Anthology this, year, the Forward Book 2015, and alongside some amazing others like Colin Herd, Carrie Etter, Marianne Morris, Denise Riley, DP Oprava and Hannah Silva. Worth a punt. http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/
product/0571315240/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_2?pf_rd_p=479289247 & my book the poem was commended from http://www.eyewearpublishing.com/products-page/books/s-j-fowler/

 & Sabotage reviews ran a fine review of the anthology by Rosie Breese who mentions a wee bit of Trepidation http://sabotagereviews.com/2014/09/30/the-forward-book-of-poetry-2014/

Yes But Are We Enemies? diary #6 - London & farewell

There were tears shed at the very end of it. Often the London event, following the time spent in the country of question on Enemies tours can feel like an afterthought, a rounding up. This was all its own thing, packed with people, full of great performances and full of its own energy. What can be said about #YBAWE? It was perhaps, overall, the best thing I've been a part of in the project so far. So good was the time in Ireland, in the cities and travelling, with the beautiful core poets and the local others we met along the way. So good was the work, the poetry, and so satisfying the feeling at the end as at the beginning. Not the last time Ireland will be in my thoughts for poetry I am sure.
Pascal O'Loughlin & Marcus Slease https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnZ7JsYRQ90
Kim Campanello & Kit Fryatt https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsV6VJ2CXdM
Christodoulos Makris & SJ Fowler https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeUG10BuZBA
Ailbhe Darcy & Patrick Coyle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FrbwJDo0rA
Sam Riviere & Billy Ramsell https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iI1qJD4Dwys

Yes But Are We Enemies? diary #5 - Dublin : the end of our Ireland

One of the best Enemies events I've ever been a part of. Hard to describe just how intense, and how brilliant this event felt. Very much, it would seem to me, to be a culmination of a variety of circumstance. The first being the underappreciation of the strength of the Irish avant garde. Here poets of that ilk came together, from Cork to Derry, from Dublin and beyond to share a series of works so radically different in their experimentation, but all wonderful in their power and authenticity, that it became undeniable there is an amazing thing happening right now in Ireland. From audiovisual collaboration, to performance art, to found text, to multivocal readings, the event did what we initially planned this tour might do, and it gave a home, and created a platform for really diverse writers to prove us right. It was also in the Writers Centre, a beautiful place, but known perhaps for its formality, and we crammed it, filled most of the two rooms, and somehow used the ornate nature of the surroundings to intensify the intimacy of the works. We also preceded it with a Q&A, which became, in a gentle way, a discussion with a hypothesis, about collaboration and the Irish tradition. Had the following hours poetry been a damp squib, we might have appeared foolish, but seeing its fire and its clear success as an enterprise, all the more it was as though we had convinced the audience about the salience of our ideas. And finally, it was the last Irish date for us six travelling, and assorted others, and it felt like a goodbye of sorts, because it was. I had such a wonderful time reading with Billy and the others, and really felt as relaxed as I can remember feeling at such an occasion. The videos below bear this out. 

Anamaria Crowe Serrano & Alan Jude Moore https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtF-GGgfZug
Michael Shanks & Cal Doyle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1C9NnKwxnU
Aodan McCardle & Ailbhe Hines https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHwymwq82uI
Sam Riviere & Ailbhe Darcy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofoUxakKZ8A
Christodoulos Makris & Patrick Coyle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPhuZ7INV-0


Yes But Are We Enemies? diary #4 - Cork

Time is bending, feeling like a lot longer than less than a week since we were in Belfast, and writing about things that have happened a day ago while doing things I'll write about in a day. Cork was perhaps the highlight of the tour so far. A city without anything overbearing it but itself, that is it felt like a real city, a fully one rounded one, and Billy's hometown. Again I was driven to Cork, passing the magical Bunratty and Ballygibbon, while Billy and I chatted about Ireland and Irish things, amongst poetry discussion. I got to see where he grew up, got to really about Cork before I explored it myself. We stayed by the University, and it was freshers week, but also near Fitzgerald park and the beautiful hidden riverpaths that lead East out of the city. The city was perfectly lovely, though I was stared at relentlessly. Long, strange, intent stares. Not sure why.The reading itself was a grand success. The venue, in the Triskel arts centre, was packed, 50 seated, at least another 20 standing. It really felt as if Cork's poetry scene was highly developed, full of festivals, visiting poets, an active community. It was lively discussions preceding the readings, and getting to meet Paul Casey, Afric McGlinchey, Doireann Ni Ghriofa, Sarah Hayden, Rachel Warriner beforehand, I realised they all organised readings, had their own presses, taught in schools, translated between languages and so forth. It felt much more like a Camarade event in London with each pair bringing an openness, a volume and an individuality that some other readings can't achieve because they feel like the first time the poets have been given the chance to collaborate and communicate in this way. Not so in Cork, all the 7 pairs delivered with a palpable sense of enthusiasm that spread through the attentive audience. Sarah Hayden & Rachel Warriner https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wS7UGRrOctg
Doireann Ni Ghriofa & Cal Doyle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRY5g9Jw_bI
Eleanor Hooker & Sarah Hesketh https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2ZrvlKgyyU
Paul Casey & Afric McGlinchey https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYwa8SwfYkY
Christodoulos Makris & Sam Riviere https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qefcQINZyI
Billy Ramsell & Patrick Coyle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdQmG16sfwk

a review of Yes But Are We Enemies? Cork by Rosie O'Regan on Sabotage reviews

"Yes, but are we enemies is the intriguing title for a refreshingly eclectic group of touring and local  poets. The TDC (Theatre Development Centre) at Triskel was a very suitable venue for this well attended event in Cork. It’s about twenty by sixty feet of windowless dark grey painted stone and concrete with a modest but adequate lighting rig. I call it the cave. It’s perfectly conducive for intimate happenings in theatre and poetry alike. All in all there were about fifty bums on seats (that’s bums attached to legs and spines as opposed to bus shelters and park benches) and another fifteen or so leaned on the wall or sat on a platform at the back, an impressive turnout for an experimental poetry gig.
Steven J Fowler and Christodoulos Makris who have co-curated the Irish leg of this innovative and ambitious project, graciously introduced the evening. S.J Fowler has already brought the project to four other countries, his stated aim being to encourage experimentation through poetry in collaboration, to question how we read or listen to poetry and to find new ways of composition. The Irish poets, Ailbhe Darcy, Billy Ramsell and (Dublin-based) Christodoulos Makris, along with English poets Patrick Coyle, Sam Riviere and S.J Fowler, are now coming to the tail end of the Irish tour  which has included Belfast, Derry, Galway, Cork and Dublin. It will finish in London on Saturday the 27th at 7pm at the Rich Mix Arts Centre. In each city they visit, they are joined by six local poets. The collaborative combinations are ever changing, so each event, while relating to the theme, is its own animal.....
The person responsible for inspiring so many excellent poets with the undoubtable worthy concept ‘Yes, but are we enemies’ was next to take the stage. Steven J.Fowler was joined by Ailbhe Darcy. They delved into the theme of a nuclear holocaust, managing to lighten the severity of their subject with a dark wit. Ailbhe spoke ‘imagination is the worst part of torture’, to which Steven quipped ‘the redemption’. I saw a mischievousness in Ailbhe. Steven had a steady self assuredness, ‘one golden boy’ appearing totally at ease with his audience. I wasn’t quite sure where the poetry was taking me, however. Like I said my attention span was wavering. I did feel safe in their hands and took this line home, ‘inundated by rude people as though we were computers and they numbers’.
Christodoulos Makris and Sam Riviere engaged in a clever letter writing exchange. It was a game of top dog that lightened the mood and inspired much laughter from the audience. ‘What is the use in talking to people who think they know better?’ None I suppose, but listening to two trying to prove the same is entertaining. When one of them piped up with ‘ignoring women is the only thing that turns me on’, I thought to myself, now that’s good comedy. Why? Because with some women it might just be a good strategy. I was happy to be introduced to Christodoulos and Sam, two new voices. Their straight talking made the overall experience a bit more playful around the concept of ‘enemies’. ‘savages come from everywhere’, yes indeed and ‘every arrival is the story of a departure’.
Patrick Coyle and Billy Ramsell were a great combination to round off proceedings. They put the performance into the poetry that was perhaps a little lacking with others who relied solely on reading from the page. Patrick had an energy to him that was buzzing. He was having so much fun himself that it couldn’t not be felt. ‘Oh de do da day’ yay! His approach was spontaneous in that he incorporated seven syllables from every other reading of the night to his, ‘do da do da’ and when he took out his smart phone, used the taping tone of the digits to emphasise a line, I was fully with him. I relished in the daftness of ‘orange rhymes with orange’ and ‘these camp-town racists who sing that song, oh de do da’ gay racists? I suppose it takes all kinds of enemies to make this special, spatial planet. Billy Ramsell who probably won’t like me at all for putting his name after that last sentence was a worthy candidate to end with. No one else enunciates quite so deliberately. He gives every word its full shape, started into his poem slowly, tasted the snap of every consonant, then gradually found himself swaying, eyes closed and words flowing. It was about memory, memory extraction, harvesting and transfer. It was memorable."

London Art Book Fair - reading for Akerman Daly

Poetry reading at London Art Book Fair


Sunday 28 September, 3pm - 4pm, Gallery 8
Free, no booking required.
 
Akerman Daly presents performative readings by a selection of artists from the poetry of Fabian Peake. Peake and guest artists Phyllida Barlow, Fiona Banner, Clover Peake, Steven J. Fowler, Jess Flood-Paddock, Maria Zahle, Giovanna Coppola will read from his new collection Loose Monk.

Akerman Daly will be at the London Art Book Fair 26–28 September 2014. Preview 25 September 6–9pm. 
http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/shop/product/category_id/218/product_id/2091

Nov 5th - Freeword Centre : Enemies Slovakia


The Enemies project presents: Slovakian poetry in collaboration


Wed 5 Nov 2014, 7:00pm
Free Word Lecture Theatre

Enemies

The Enemies project presents some of the most exciting contemporary poets from Slovakia collaborating to read original works of avant garde / literary poetry with British contemporaries. Joined by a host of London based poets, this will be a unique night of original European poetry. Featuring Erik Simsik & Marcus Slease, Juliana Solokova & Meike Ziervogel, Maria Ferencuhova & Prudence Chamberlain.

 Also reading will be Stephen Watts, Ollie Evans, Fabian Peake, Ana Seferovic & many others. Tickets for this event will be available soon.Supported by The Centre for Information on Literature in Slovakia & Arts Council England  https://freewordcentre.com/events/detail/the-enemies-project-presents-slovakian-poetry-in-collaboration

Yes But Are We Enemies? diary #3 - Galway

The difference a three hour car ride through the north west of Ireland can make. The intensity of Derry for the easy gait of Galway. The change was pretty extreme. I rode in Billy Ramsell's car with Ailbhe Darcy, while the unfortunates got the bus. Nothing like a poet's road trip, and with Billy, a gentle education in Irish history (welcomed, asked for), Irish language (and it's poetry), and Trad music (which is uniformly beautiful). Galway itself was like a small, Leprechaun ridden Barcelona. The volume of tourists, tourist bars, tourist shops, students, and people in general was pretty surprising to me, and the hot weather (apparently extremely rare) made for a change of tone. But runs down on the seaside, against the atlantic, and the food and the friendliness of the people made it apparent why so many people love it as a place. Again the cohesion and care the group has for each other was palpable, we all ate together on what was really our first day without a reading.
A full day in Galway and then to the arts centre for the reading itself. Some beautiful contributions from Elaine Cosgrove, Anamaria Crowe Serrano, Susan Millar DuMars, Kevin Higgins, Eleanor Hooker, the wonderful Sarah Hesketh who'd come all the way from London to join us, and Sam and Ailbhe, the genuine talent of the latter bringing some non-ironic feelings out of the former for the first time in his life I'm sure. My performance with Christodoulos was a wee bit unexpected by the audience perhaps, a bit more performative, or contradictory, or combustible than they'd expected, and in contrast to the gentility of the fine poetry beforehand, it was noticeable, the discomfort. I am glad we did it, despite not wanting to make people feel awkward, I do believe that is a valid aesthetic reaction and guards against the complacency and comfort that often lazy lyrical poetry can bring. Moreover, it is a very real part of what this tour and project stands for, that the avant garde of Ireland has been smothered and needs its platform with the more 'poetic' poetry. By the time Patrick was utilising repetition as a humourous and interrogative tool against listeners complacency we had got a walkout! Strike one for the project. Elaine Cosgrove & Anamaria Crowe Serrano https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKMA65LAczM
Susan Millar DuMars & Kevin Higgins https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4g7y-Tf0YE
Sarah Hesketh & Eleanor Hooker https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tzhXDGmcZE
Christodoulos Makris & myself https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pauNrHzFVo
Patrick Coyle & Billy Ramsell https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9mkefRikHk
Ailbhe Darcy & Sam Riviere https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnmY5ek5WF