Concrete Poetry

Concrete poems appeared in my book Fights (Veer Books 2014) and two Poetry Posters - Vikings (POW 2014) and Klitschko (ZimZalla 2010). My work featured in the landmark anthology - The New Concrete (Hayward Publishing 2015).

My first exposure to poetry was in the post-Bob Cobbing Writers Forum group in London, where concrete poetry was fundamental. My debut pamphlet was the last ever produced by the united Writers Forum Press, Poggel Intricate (2010)

In 2020, I co-curated KlangFarbenText at the Lyrik Kabinett, Munich, a groundbreaking exchange of British and German contemporary concrete poets in collaboration.

Klang Farben Text : Munich, March 2020

A landmark project, curated by Chris McCabe and I, alongside Elke Ritt of the British Council, and Holger Pils of the Lyrik Kabinett, which is perhaps the most significant exchange of British and European, German in this case, Concrete poets in the 21st century. We brought together 12 of the finest concretists, with guest Eugen Gomringer, for nearly a week in Munich, exhibiting, exchanging, discussing, collaborating. A wonderful chance for us to pick apart our works and influences specific to Concrete work. / Below you can see my talk on Bob Cobbing’s influence on me and my opinion on Concrete as a ubiquitous practise and a wee performance making a sponge concrete poem live.

My travelogue of the project www.stevenjfowler.com/klangfarbentext and more info, with videos of all the performances www.europeanpoetryfestival.com/klangfarbentext

My concrete poetry in granite at Åby Library, Aarhus, Denmark September 21, 2019

The Danish artist and concrete poet Kamilla Jorgensen has put into stone anoutdoor exhibition in Denmark called Dyresti (Animal Path) for an Aarhus library. It's a path of granite tiles, each tile engraved with concrete poems that have a connection with an animal. Most of the poems are by Danish writers, but she kindly asked me if I’d have my poem #1st Crown of the Hoi Polloi, from my books Fights and the The New Concrete anthology involved. I am blown away by the result, it’s so beautifully rendered. I’m in there with some amazing contemporary concrete poets and the great Christian Morgenstern too.

The New Concrete anthology 2015
Hayward Publishing

The most beautiful anthology I've been a part of and the most important anthology of Concrete Poetry in the 21st century. An honour to be included alongside Vito Acconci, Henri Chopin, Bob Cobbing, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Jenny Holzer, Lilianne Lijn, Hansjörg Mayer, Tom Phillips et al. Thanks to editors Chris McCabe and Victoria Bean.

“The New Concrete is a long-overdue survey of the rise of concrete poetry in the digital age. The accessibility of digital text and image manipulation, modern print techniques and the rise of self-publishing have invigorated a movement that first emerged in an explosion of literary creativity during the 1950s and 1960s. This new volume is a highly illustrated overview of contemporary artists and poets working at the intersection of visual art and literature, producing some of the most engaging and challenging work in either medium.”

https://www.cornerhousepublications.org/publications/the-new-concrete/

Lego Concrete Poem : Typeroom 2018

http://www.typeroom.eu/article/twenty-things-you-must-know-about-concrete-and-visual-poetry

A brilliant article from Typeroom.eu, 20 things you must know about concrete poetry, featuring my LEGO poem, that I made on the night of the New Concrete anthology launch.

Vikings : POW Editions - 2014

Antonio Claudio Carvalho’s amazing POW poster poetry series featured six of my Runic Concrete Poems as Vikings.

TYPEROOM magazine on the series “Futura then futura now; Hansjörg Mayers’ publishing projects in the early ‘60s included prints, portfolios, books and the broadside series futura which featured his own work and that of many major practitioners of concrete poetry at the time - all set in the Futura typeface. Antonio Claudio Carvalho has recreated this series of broadsides under the name p.o.w – prisoners opposed to war, featuring The New Concrete contributors Roel Goussey, Chris McCabe, Sam Winston, SJ Fowler, Hansjorg Mayer, Victoria Bean, Augusto de Campos, Peter Finch and Julie Johnstone.”

Chris McCabe on my Vikings - The penultimate p.o.w. takes us directly into the heart of visual language and does so through a challenging emotive language.vikings by s.j. fowler is an anachronistic Anglo-Saxon poem spelt out through runic images. Fowler uses his biographical note to tell us that "he is of viking heritage, and his middle name is Bjorn, which means bear". The poems drives through an end-of-the-world landscape describing a violent love encounter with a woman called Erika. The poet captures the savagery of the viking death desire, as if language is the container in which all the offshoots of their hand-to-mouth struggles was captured in. This landscape of movement, uncertainty, lust and danger is propelled forwards through the compounded, a-syntactic language and the shifts in font type and size. The poem, it could be argued, represents a fierce and honest struggle with the self, although it concludes quite beautifully : "I shine only for you, dove / it's / time to introduce / my distant pres- / ent past into / the pres- / ent".

Mellom Press Exhibition - May 17, 2020

Really lovely to have two of my Rune Concrete poems, further into the FUTHARK alphabet, included in the debut exhibition, online for obvious reasons, of Mellom Press.

Mellom is run by Silje Ree, who is a really brilliant poet and artist, whom I worked with at Kingston University. The exhibition en masse can be found here https://mellompress.com/translations/ and features friends like Imogen Reid, Peter Jaeger, Theodoros Chiotis and many others.

My two poems, ISAZ and JERAN https://mellompress.com/sj-fowler/

Collaborations with Anatol Knotek

Arguably the finest contemporary concrete poetry practitioner, Anatol Knotek and I have been collaborating since 2012. We exchanged a series of texts as translations, of a kind, from textual to visual, from conceptual to constraint, but Concrete poetry remained our core focus.

Various magazine publications over the years, and an appearance in Philip Davenport’s DARK WOULD anthology were followed in 2020 by the publication seen here, with more, at Wazogate.com

https://www.wazogate.com/alternative-oulipo-methods/

Fights: published by Veer Books (2011) in a second edition (2015)

My book of poems about boxers www.stevenjfowler.com/fights features numerous concrete poetry and is really the most concentrated example of my engagement with the form.

New functions for the jaw. Poetic histories from all possible angles, and then some. Its about time boxing - the basis of all sport - was understood from the viewpoint of the poetic mind. Slam it into your mouth and read it out LOUD. Sean Bonney

‘... a new beginning and one that is so much the swiftest, the widest, balanced. One hesitates to use the word pure, but’ A dazzling, visceral, proficient, kinetic work. Fights runs its combinations in formal excitement and trenchgut force. Maggie O’Sullivan

Its Nice That : 2010

https://www.itsnicethat.com/authors/steven-fowler A small feature on the design hub It’s Nice That, from 2010, where I discuss some poets I admire, focusing in on Concrete poets Bob Cobbing and Marton Koppany especially.

“Márton Koppány has been producing work of immense quality in the field of visual poetry for over thirty years. His work is led by a suspicion and engagement with the limits of language and verbal expression, and maintains a incisiveness that always attracts me. There’s really great work coming out of Europe at the moment, there is a renaissance in visual poetry and he is at the forefront.”

Poggel Intricate : Writers Forum 2010

My first ever publication was a hand-made, hand-folded set of Concrete Poems, intended to be read aloud as an English person not speaking the language they were built of. They are shaped chunks of text in a language I found and thought looked interesting to shape.

I read these poems at Writers Forum in 2010, in London, under a year into poetry (even knowing what it was, really) and was encouraged to publish them as part of the over 1000 pamphlets, booklets and books that make up the remarkable history of the WF press. I was there after Bob Cobbing had passed away, but still Jennifer Pike Cobbing was in attendance, along with many others who had been with the group for decades. It was the last small ephemeral thing the Forum put out before it split into two groups, but all that was confusing to me, not knowing much about the history or the split.

The history of the WF press https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writers_Forum

P.O.W. poetry poster art celebration reading June 29, 2014

Held at the Juggler in Hoxton, supported by the Bookart Bookshop and curated by the lovely Sophie Herxheimer, this was a really intimate, warm and enjoyable reading, a celebration of the brilliant work of Antonio Claudio Carvalho and this unique concrete poetry series that he has published. Good to meet some really brilliant poets too, like Robert Vas Dias and Victoria Bean. & I got to read with Chris McCabe, with some heavy male bond swaying.

Klitschko : Zimzalla Press - 2010

part of my FIGHTS poetry series, a concrete poetry boxing poster, celebrating the heavyweight champion twins from Ukraine.

produced as a A3 poster. www.zimzalla.co.uk

Vikings - Exhibited at Ark (Copenhagen) 2013

http://www.stevenjfowler.com/blog/2014/04/fjender-in-copenhagen.html

A temporary poster exhibition of my VIKINGS pow poetry poster at the copenhagen bookshop and cultural centre, as part of the Fjender project.