the Being Human festival in the Hub at the Wellcome collection

I had a great time this past tuesday afternoon, nov 18th, in the new Hub space at the Wellcome Trust. http://www.wellcomecollection.org/what-we-do/residents They were hosting a drop in station with seven different interactive stations as part of the Being Human festival http://beinghumanfestival.org/ and I was invited to have a place, called Martial States of Rest, that was essentially a discursive exercise in things I'm interested in that connect the martial arts, my art projects and neuroscience, exploring in this conversation with visitors, alongside a few small demonstrations. It connects with my residency in the Hub, on and off, for the two years of the project, with an intensive period of residence January 2015 to March 2015. After this few hours, I cannot wait to be in this remarkable space and project for much of time come 2015. It is an amazing place filled with equally amazing people. (the picture here shows me throwing a rear naked choke on Jamie Wilkes, which was fun)


The atmosphere of energy and generosity really permeated through the day, I had a wonderful time exchanging ideas with the public, the fellow Hub participants and the Wellcome staff, really grappling with ideas around active states of rest under physical duress, whether neural pathways and behaviors of rest are effected by genetic predisposition, habitual training or active mindful engagement. The conversations were extremely wide ranging and intense, and in the midst I tried to tie this into my life's training in the martial arts, using the technique of the choke to express ideas around psychological / physiological states of relaxation and resistance, and the use of active states of rest in daily life. A really lovely day and a wonderful precursor to much of the work I hope to engage in with the Hub and the Wellcome Trust, all the stations were fascinating, covering issues around sleep, employment, voice, language and more. 

after the Fest - Camaradefest blogs & videos

Only a few weeks ago now, Camaradefest seems to resonated with the people who attended and performed, which is obviously very gratifying. Some lovely blog posts have been written detailing the day, from:

 Aki Schilz - http://akifreetheword.wordpress.com/2014/11/10/camaradefest-ii/
"...I wrote a few micropoems on Twitter throughout the day, taking bits from everyone else’s poems to compose a sort of ‘mashup’ collection/overview of the event https://akifreetheword.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/camaradefest.pdf"

 Iain Morrison - http://permanentpositions.wordpress.com/2014/10/29/veni-vidi-lectiti-iains-london-visit-24-28-october-2014/ 
"We arrived at something, sounding like Steve Reich minimalism regularly interrupted by exclamatory words, via a poem by Brodsky called Elegy for John Donne. It’s an iambic pentameter poem. Most of the syllables in it we suppressed into the number 1 with a few words showing through to disrupt the typographic snow drift."

 Holly Corfield Carr - http://hollycorfieldcarr.wordpress.com/2014/10/27/bisect-dissect/
",,,and this incised extimacy with Eley Willams and Prudence Chamberlain and more things than I can try to cleverly word from more poets than I can fit in my car and drive around the Carr-Clegg coniunctio.  There was everything I could want: flip-charts, trip ups, rip-roaring laughter and pillows in swimsuits and sexy poems and power steeples and that was only the first hour.  It was wonderful and a bit messy and a lot good."

 & this grand minidoc by the Czech centre marking the appearance of Zuzana Husarova & Olga Pek

announcing Kakania! a brand new project begins Nov 25th

Thanks to the Austrian Cultural Forum, I’m delighted to announce a new project that celebrates the culture of Habsburg Vienna a century ago, with commissions of contemporary artists from 21st century London. Kakania - over 4 events, each in different venues, 4 original publications and an array of contemporary artists working in poetry, visual art, sound & conceptual art - aims to not just to evoke the Habsburg era, but to envelope it, to transpose it, to avoid nostalgia and in its stead bring the intensity and innovation that marked the last days of the Habsburg era. www.kakania.co.uk

Each artist is creating new work based on one specific figure from that time. The website features an artists section where you can see the full list of commissions, which include Emily Berry on Sigmund Freud, Colin Herd on Oskar Kokoschka, Caroline Bergvall on Gustav Klimt, & George Szirtes on Arthur Schnitzler, amongst many others, including, in time, works on Stefan Zweig, Robert Musil, Egon Schiele, Gustav Mahler, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Alma Mahler, Joseph Roth & many others.

The first event takes place in just over two weeks and is completely free to attend.

Kakania
November Tuesday 25th – 7.30pm
the Rich Mix Arts Centre – Main space – Free Entry
http://www.richmix.org.uk/whats-on/event/kakania/
Featuring brand new commissions from:
Sharon Gal on Anton Webern
​Jeff Hilson on Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ariadne Radi Cor & Diane Silverthorne on Alma Mahler
Dylan Nyoukis on Raoul Hausmann​
Stephen Emmerson on ​Rainer Maria Rilke
​​​​Maja Jantar on Lou Andreas-Salome
​
The following three events will take place on:
​
January thurs 22nd at the Freud Museum
http://www.freud.org.uk/events/75773/kakania/
Featuring brand new commissions from:
Emily Berry on Sigmund Freud​
Damir Sodan on Gustav Mahler​​
Jeff Hilson on Ludwig Wittgenstein​
& many more

​
​February thurs 19th at TBC
Featuring brand new commissions from:
Caroline Bergvall on Gustav Klimt
​ Stephen Emmerson on Rainer Maria Rilke
​Tom Jenks on Otto Gross
Colin Herd on Oskar Kokoschka​
Martin Bakero on TBC
​Morten Sondergaard on TBC

​​March thurs 26th at the Austrian Cultural Forum

Featuring brand new commissions from:
George Szirtes on Arthur Schnitzler
Joshua Alexander on Paul Wittgenstein
Jeff Hilson on Ludwig Wittgenstein
Emily Berry on Sigmund Freud​​​​
Marcus Slease on Max Kurzweil
Stephen Emmerson on Rainer Maria Rilke​​

Kakania is an ambitious project which explores the legacy of the Habsburg past through decidedly contemporary, original works of text and art, which will attempt to be as complex and genre testing as the works, and the people, they are responsive to. Please come out to support the endeavour.


Kakania is also partnered by Pushkin Press, who will have books to sell at the events & who publish vital Habsburg figures like Stefan Zweig http://pushkinpress.com/ & the website is ever growing with new works of art and poetry published online, as well as information on the project and its commissions, so please check back regularly www.kakania.co.uk All thanks go to the Austrian Cultural Forum http://www.acflondon.org/

Reading at the launch of Coin Opera 2

I was very privileged to feature in the magical Coin Opera 2 anthology of video game poetry edited by Kirsty Irving and Jon Stone and their always beautifully rendered Sidekick books. Not only was the anthology full of great poets and poems but the whole enterprise felt fresh and valuable to me, this is what anthologies should be about, not a taxonomy but a commission, a chance for new work and collective community. I was even happier to get to read at the launch, held upstairs at the Four Quarters bar in Peckham, essentially the loft room of a fully functioning arcade. Pretty grand stuff. 

 Do buy the book here http://www.drfulminare.com/coinoperaii.php Here's my wee reading.  

teaching Maintenant for the Poetry School in 2015 as an International course

I'm really delighted to say that in January 2015 I shall be once again teaching my Maintenant course for the Poetry School. This is exciting on two fronts:

 The first is that this course, the first time round, was undoubtedly my most positive experience teaching, ever. I got very lucky with the group of people who came to share their thoughts, but also years of research, really from the start of my writing as a whole, as well as from the 98 issue deep interview series I ran here www.maintenant.co.uk, into contemporary European poetry came to bear. I knew more than I had thought I knew, and had a passion for much that I had forgotten. This in the ideas behind the movements more than anything - in teaching the course I came to realise so many of these brave, wondrous engagements with experimental literature on the continent since WWII had genuine and fully realised political, ideological and philosophical ideas driving them, and these were good ideas. Not at all pretentious or removed, so many of these movements were about responding to the horrors of the middle 20th century and could be gleaned for the unique problems, and opportunities of our time. So I realised more than I had that the European avant garde was wholly relevant to me, that I shared, often, its concerns, and so took much away in realisation of how and why my writing had become what it has. I think the 16 people who came every two weeks to speak with me at the Poetry school thought so too. So we engaged deeply with the potential of technology and writing, of political and social engagement, of collaboration and community. Their amazing energy and their desire to make these historical groups and movements new and real to them was palpable, and amongst other things, at one of my events celebrating Danish poetry, they did this:

 The second reason in that this second go of Maintenant is an International course. This means it can be taken by anyone in the world and, I would hope, many from Europe as well as beyond. It's very exciting to be able to relate my ideas and my thoughts about these 5 great movements with people who have a wholly other perspective than my own. This accessibility is such an exciting prospect, and a credit to the innovative pedagogical approach of the poetry school and will undoubtedly produce a really interesting experience for me, as much as, I hope, those who take up the course. Moreover it means the course is assignment driven, i.e. writing driven, and this was always the hope, that the course would be a platform for others to create their own work, their own movements, or at least radical and personal ideas for themselves and their writing. Here is the syllabus:

 Week One:  – Oulipo
Georges Perec, Jacques Roubeau, Raymond Queneau up to Frederic Forte and British Oulippeans like Philip Terry. The constraints that emancipate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oulipo

 Week Two:  – Austrian postwar modernism
Thomas Bernhard, Peter Handke, Elfriede Jelinek. How to deal with the legacy of Fascism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Handke

 Week Three:  - Concrete poetry
Hansjörg Mayer, Bob Cobbing, The Vienna Group, Oyvind Fahlstrom, Marton Koppany up to Anatol Knotek. The visuality of the poem as its meaning http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete_poetry

 Week Four:  - CoBrA
Asger Jorn, Christian Dotremont, Pierre Alechinsky. Dutch, Danish, Belgian & beyond, poetry as art revolt & primitivism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COBRA_(avant-garde_movement)

 Week Five:  - British Poetry Revival
Tom Raworth, Bill Griffiths, Maggie O’Sullivan & many many more. Those every British poet should know, our immense late 20th century Vanguard heritage. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_poetry_revival - 

 You can also read an indepth interview with me about this course and other stuff here:
http://campus.poetryschool.com/maintenant-interview-s-j-fowler/

All we need is rest - Nov 18th for the Hubbub at the Wellcome centre

http://www.wellcomecollection.org/events/all-we-need-rest Very happy to be part of the Being Human festival in my very first event related to the Hub residency at the Wellcome trust, where I will be hovering around for the next two years and in intense residence from January through to April. This event will be a drop in session from 12 noon to 2pm at the wellcome trust Hub space itself, near Euston. I'll be there with Patrick Coyle and James Wilkes doing some martial arts demos and performances.
"What does 'rest' mean to you? When, where and how do you rest? Rest can seem hard to find, whether in relation to our exhausted bodies, our racing minds or the hectic city of London. Should we slow down, or should we embrace intense activity? What effects do each of these states have on the health of our bodies and minds? How have people at other times and in other places thought about and practised rest?
Join Hubbub, an interdisciplinary research team, at the start of their two-year investigation into rest and its opposites. The new Hub space at Wellcome Collection will be specially opened to the public for a free, drop-in lunchtime session. Try out interactive demonstrations in poetry, neuroscience and the history of medicine, and hear mini-talks on state-of-the-art research into rest. Find out more about the experiments in the arts, humanities and sciences that Hubbub will be running over the next two years and how you might get involved.
The Hub is a pioneering location for creative work that explores what happens when medicine and health intersect with the arts, humanities and social sciences. Its first residents are Hubbub, an interdisciplinary team investigating the dynamics of rest and its opposites, as they operate in mental health, neuroscience, the arts and the everyday."

Coming November 22nd the Interrobang Camarade

Im really happy to be curating an upcoming Camarade event with 8 pairs of poets reading new collaborations as part of the evening's entertainment for Nick Murray and Annexe presses extraordinary Interrobang book fair and poetry day http://annexemagazine.com/interrobang at the Freeword in Farringdon. More info to come, but for now, we have confirmed the marvelous: 

 Cali Dux & Simon Pomery - Kirsty Irving & Harry Man - Gary Budden & Kit Caless - Jon Stone & Harry Wooler - Prudence Chamberlain & Eley Williams - Nick Murray & Aki Schilz

the Enemies project: Slovakia - the videos

A really beautiful evening was spent at the Freeword centre this past wednesday, to celebrate, for the second year running, the Enemies project's Slovakian poetry project, and luckily for us in London we had Erik Simsik, Maria Ferencuhova and Juliana Sokolova visiting from Bratislava, all on great form both with their individual readings and some amazing collaborative works. So gratifying, after such an intense period, to see such great new works presented before a good audience in a venue I rarely work in. Thanks to the Litcentrum in Slovakia. 

Enemies presents Slovakia : this wednesday Nov 5th at Freeword

The Enemies project presents: Slovakian poetry in collaboration
 
Wed 5 Nov 2014, 7:00pm, Free entry: The Freeword Centre - Lecture Theatre
 
For the second year running, 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.http://weareenemies.com/slovakiaii.html ​​Featuring:
 
Erik Simsik & Marcus Slease / ​Juliana Solokova & Meike Ziervogel /Maria Ferencuhova & Prudence Chamberlain plus Stephen Watts, Fabian Peake, Ollie Evans, Ana Seferovic, Michael Zand & more​​​​​​
 
Supported by the Centre for Information on Literature in Slovakia & Arts Council England

Day of the Deaded - the videos

The day of the deaded reading took place at the rich mix and was really an attempt to mark that date as special, considering how the Enemigos project took me to Mexico city last year and to offer a small addition to the rich mix's weekend of interesting events. It was a difficult reading to curate with the mass of events recently, Camaradefest not least amongst them, but the seven performances were generously given, very intense and very much representative of a British understanding of death, perhaps against the Mexican. I was a little out of energy but managed, thanks to the extraordinary Amalie Russell, artist and Hardy Tree curator, to represent the Mexico skeleton to full effect. 
Tom Chivers
Mercedes Azpilicueta & Ohad Ben Shimon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kklJhkLWCCg

Zimzalla exhibition closing readings

This was a really wonderful evening in the Hardy Tree gallery, just a few days after the mass of the Camaradefest, this was an intimate way to unwind and share work with many who had travelled to London for the fest. Also a proper way to say goodbye to the brilliant but brief Zimzalla exhibition, which Tom Jenks has put a lot into and the Enemies project is proud to represent.
Zuzana Husarova & Olga Pek (Tryie collective) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5B4JvHiwg54
Kim Campanello https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-yjF49erKI
Lucy Harvest Clarke https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CX1nsbQFQ04
Iain Morrison https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQTX6CKWTgI
Ryan Van Winkle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UouHrENNFFw
Tom Jenks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzZwQkgcwPk
Christodoulos Makris https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s09hcNNSDq8

2 new poems up on the new issue of Cordite from Australia

http://cordite.org.au/ Really happy to be in Cordite for a second issue running. This one is edited by Corey Wakeling and is themed on constraints. Some incredible poets in the issue, Emily Critchley, John Wilkinson et al, and as ever with Cordite, its a sprawling, ambitious engagement with the theme.

 You can read Corey's intro here http://cordite.org.au/essays/constraint-editorial/

 My poem Split here http://cordite.org.au/poetry/constraint/split/
My poem No limit to the resources http://cordite.org.au/poetry/constraint/no-limit-to-the-resources/




new Veer books website

http://www.veerbooks.com/ Delighted to see a beautiful new website for Veer books, who generously published my collection Fights in 2011 http://www.veerbooks.com/filter/veer-books/Steven-J-Fowler-fights & edited by a collective of extraordinary poets, have put together one of the most important lists in 21st century poetry, including poets from around the world. I sincerely recommend you checking them out and buying their wares.
Plus there is a sale! 

Enemigos - Day of the Deaded - London Bookfair

Day of the Deaded
Rich Mix Arts Centre : Friday October 31st : 8pm : Venue 2
 
Come & spend your Day of the Dead, October Friday 31st, with the Enemies project at the Rich Mix Arts Centre, for a night of Día de Muertos in London. Featuring original performances and poetry from Mark Waldron, Tom Chivers, David Berridge, Ohad Ben Simon, Mercedes Azpilicueta, Mary Paterson & more, this unique evening is part of Enemigos: the enemies project Mexico and a rare chance to gather your friends to remember the dead in the most imaginative of ways. http://weareenemies.com/dayofthedeaded.html
 
--
 
The second phase of Enemigos: the Enemies project in Mexico recently took place at Hay Xalapa, the Cervantino festival in Guanajuato and Mexico City. An extraordinary series of events in Mexico held over a few weeks, it was topped by the release of the long awaited Enemigos anthology.
 
My reading from the Hay festival in Mexico is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NLrM5SygAM and my six blogs from the intense and eventful fortnight are here:
http://blutkitt.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/mexico-diario-de-la-poesia-1-hay-xalapa.html
http://blutkitt.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/mexico-diario-de-la-poesia-2-hay-xalapa.html
http://blutkitt.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/mexico-diario-de-la-poesia-3-hay-xalapa.html
http://blutkitt.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/mexico-diario-de-la-poesia-4-hay-xalapa.html
http://blutkitt.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/mexico-diario-de-la-poesia-5-moctezumas.html
http://blutkitt.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/mexico-diario-de-la-poesia-6-enemigos.html
 
--
 
The Enemigos anthology is a groundbreaking anthology of cross-national, cross-lingual radical translation, where 8 poets from Mexico City exchanged texts, and deliberately experimental translations, with 8 poets from London and vice versa. The result is a unique anthology of collaborative poetry that explores the outer realms of translation and has connected two communities of poets across continents. It features the work of Tom Raworth & Roldolfo Mata, Carol Watts & Enzia Verduchi, Rocio Ceron & Holly Pester, David Berridge & Alberto Blanco, Tom Chivers & Ana Franco Ortuno, Gaspar Orozco & Tim Atkins, Jeff Hilson & Pura Lopez Colome, and myself & Amanda de la Garza. It is published by EBL Cielo Abierto, and will be available in the UK April 2015. https://es-es.facebook.com/EblCieloAbierto
 
--
 
Enemigos will continue on into 2015, beginning with a major event to mark the first night of the London Bookfair, where Mexico is the nation of honour. On April 14th, at the Rich Mix Arts Centre, a series of visiting Mexican writers and poets will present work with British counterparts, and the Enemigos anthology will see its UK launch. www.weareenemies.com

updates on the Enemies project website : www.weareenemies.com

Recently added is a revamped About section detailing future plans and past happenings, an updated 2014 schedule with event information and videos and the beginnings of the 2015 schedule.
http://weareenemies.com/about.html 
http://weareenemies.com/events_14.html 
- an example from the about below

The future
As the Enemies project moves into 2015 there are five key points of its future program:

​​​​Innovative event curation: trying to genuinely break new ground in the form and structure of events and exhibitions and programmes between poets and artists. Events include the Kiddy Kamarade, a family poetry day including a creche and children’s pedagogical poetry activities, a collaborative residency with an award winning and innovative landscape architecture form to explore how language can shape the very literal but endlessly complex physical shaping of urban environments and new forms of collaborative poetry readings with established partners like the Hay-on-Wye festival.

Innovative collaborative connections between mediums: marrying poetry with sculpture, with England’s folk music tradition, with sound art and avant garde music, with film and film language, with animation. The new year of Enemies seeks new ground to break across artforms.

a continued increase in our International outlook: an emphasis on bringing other cultures and languages to collaborate in England, and to explore the possibilities of translation as a practise, and what this means to language but also to different artforms, to whom the word is not so familiar and provides unique challenges. Wales, Austria, Norway, Germany, Finland, Mexico and many others are on the slate.

Radical translation: a long term partnership with the Translation Games project, curated by Ricarda Vidal, following on from back to back appearances at the British Library's International Translation Day, situates Enemies at the forefront of experimental translation practise, and events and anthologies will further this pursuit in 2015.​​

Co-curating collaboration: setting up events that are built on a collaborative partnership in the curating of those events, and exploring how that mediation of exchange in the actual programming of artistic exchange affects, and enriches that practise. The Enemies website will evidence and discuss this process with a series of co-curators for the many projects lined up throughout the year, through video interviews and blogposts and interviews.

Collectives: exploring the notion of collective collaboration and how it differs from binary collaboration, and how it inherently bleeds across mediums in an organic and social manner. Through three recently established and contrasting collectives, involving some of most exciting names in contemporary art writing, performance art, poetry, visual art and electronic literature, the Enemies project will explore whether the Collective is a mode of collaboration still relevant to the 21st century.

Oxford Brookes weekly poem feature - Gilles de Rais from Enemies

http://www.brookes.ac.uk/poetry-centre/weekly-poem/weekly-poem-for-20-october-2014/ Very nice to have two poems from my collaboration with David Erkembode Kelly pop up on the Oxford Brookes poetry weekly poetry feature.  
Weekly Poem for 20 October 2014

  • from Gilles de Rais

    shot in the ribs in revenge.
    my organs like this, two ribs, rhymes 
    and emily’s 
    racist baby workout 
    is a future collected book 
    like this a postcard sized box that is completely 
    empty as a hospital bed 
    can be empty soon 
    enough if you don’t watch you mouth & if so 
    I’ll be on quick as a flash 
    evidence for it in my past
    by SJ Fowler

    This excerpt from ‘Gilles de Rais’ is copyright © SJ Fowler, 2013. It is reprinted by permission of Penned in the Margins from Enemies  (Penned in the Margins, 2013).
    Notes from Penned in the Margins: ‘Gilles de Rais’ is a collaborative work with poems by SJ Fowler and artwork from David Kelly, and comes from the anthology, Enemies. This ground-breaking, multi-disciplinary collection is the result of collaborations between SJ Fowler and over thirty artists, photographers and writers. Diary entries mingle with a partially-redacted email exchange; texts slip and fragment, finding new contexts alongside prints, paintings, diagrams, Rorschach blots, YouTube clips and behind-the-scenes photographs at the museum. Find out more from the Penned in the Margins website, watch SJ Fowler read from the poem, and follow his work on his website and on Twitter.
    Penned in the Margins is an independent publisher and live literature producer specialising in poetry and based in East London. Founded in 2004, the company has produced numerous literature and performance events, toured several successful live literature shows, published over twenty-five books, and continues to run innovative poetry, arts and performance projects in the capital and beyond. The company is currently touring two productions: Shlock!, a powerful feminist satire for the cut and paste generation, and The Shipwrecked House, a one-woman performance that blends poetry with theatre, in which Anglo-Breton poet Claire Trévien navigates a shifting maritime landscape. You can find out more about these productions on the Penned in the Margins website. 

Zimzalla exhibition launch readings

http://weareenemies.com/zimzallaexhibition.html So pleased to kick off this 4th exhibition the Enemies project has done with the Hardy Tree gallery with such a wonderful evening of readings in Kings Cross. It felt like a catch up with old friends, and the ZimZalla objects, all 25 of them, look really beautiful in the space. Tom Jenks, the mastermind behind ZimZalla seemed pleased with it, and thats all that matters to me, along with the little bit more attention his publishing venture deserves. 
Tom Watts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAZfWSGE88k
Leanne Bridgewater https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1qHPfLvcng
MJ Weller https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwSI1hplSr8
Stephen Emmerson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUvVJdqHRy4
Andy Spragg  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9g4hbIXvCQ