National Gallery poetry event VIII with Stewart Lee and friends

These events have built a real following now, they have a unique way about them, a kind of music hall playful feel, as myself and colleagues go from painting to painting in the National Gallery on a Friday night. This time joined by my students Zara Auckbaraullee and Lily Ferret, and Stewart Lee, who was generous to do the event and throw himself into it. We had a big crowd, and everyone seemed to have fun. I read poems on Turner’s Ulysses deriding Polyphemus and Stubbs’ Whistlejacket, two well known works, and again felt very instinctually these events lead me to a specific kind of poetry - something more humorous, direct, satirical than most of my writing. I was grateful too to see so many friends old and new in the crowd, and the families of my students, making the evening feel personal and intimate amidst the crowds. A really memorable one, and documented brilliantly with Alexander Kell’s photographs and Alban Low’s art portraits below.

Japan gigs this April in Tokyo and Kyoto

Very special for me to be returning to Japan for the third year running. The friendships I’ve made there have been really inspiring, and Colin Herd and I (my co-curator on the initial Japanese UK Poetry Exchange project) have been treated so well, and with such enthusiasm, for our return. As such we’ve been lucky to get funding again to return for gigs in Tokyo and Kyoto, working with poets new to us, alongside co-curators like Fukuda Pero, Silje Ree, Corey Wakeling and Miya.

April Thursday 17th - The Tokyo Camarade
Aoyama Gakuin University: 6pm https://www.theenemiesproject.com/tokyo
14 poets in 7 pairs presenting new collaborations. I’m working with the brilliant Satomi Tanaka.

April Sunday 20th - The Kyoto Camarade
Uradera Gokurakuji Buddhist temple : 2pm https://www.theenemiesproject.com/kyoto
8 pairs, and in the temple once again! A return too to a collab with Fukuda Pero.

April Thursday 24th - Tokyo Poetry Journal reading
at Ryozan Park Lounge: 7pm https://dojo.ryozanpark.com/access/ryozan-park-lounge/
Partnering with the TOPOJO for solo readings and performances

April Saturday 26th - Improvisation, Music and Poetry
at Gekkasha Jinbocho: 7pm https://gekkasha.jugem.jp/?eid=957360
A unique collaborative improv event with multiple musicians.

A note on : Writers Kingston, a special end of term event

One of the most special Writers Kingston events. The last of this term. A palpable feeling that many years of teaching and mentoring and curating has led to a very special time at Kingston Uni for me over the past academic year, and this night was a high point. I’m proud of the work we’ve done with Writers Kingston - the sense of community. The picture below speaks to that. Lots of students I’ve worked with very intensively, in my final year module, and those I’ve only shared one or two seminars with. Everyone took risks and gave a lot, and a really big audience came out to support. All the performances are here https://www.writerskingston.com/showcase25/

The night was a student showcase, and some brilliant students from undergrad and postgrad presented new works of solo and collaboration performances, readings, audio pieces, sound poems. Some super intense work, playful and unflinching. My performance, which was mostly improvised, was an attempt at being literally communal.

A note on : Shaldon Zoo poetry walking tour on May 17th

My residency with the brilliant Shaldon Zoo continues with our now annual poetry walking tour event! If you’re in Devon, come along on May 17th! https://www.stevenjfowler.com/shaldonzoo

With new poems by Steven J Fowler, Colin Herd, Amy Cutler, Will Rene plus Danica Ignacio & Eleanor Wilders, Cameron Wade & Matt Sokulsky.

For a special afternoon event, poets from across Devon and the UK present brand new poems, each dedicated to an animal in Shaldon Wildlife Trust, read to those animals and a human audience on a walking tour. Following on from the great success of the 2024 event, this now annual tradition brings together some of the UK’s most interesting writers and performers to celebrate one of the UK’s most charming zoos. Led by Zoo director Zak Showell, who introduces each animal before their poem is read, this will be a unique way to experience wildlife in Devon.

Tickets for this event are simply the usual entry fee for the zoo and visitors can stay after the event. Tickets here https://shaldonwildlifetrust.digitickets.co.uk/event-tickets/55487?catID=54246&

A note on : Versopolis celebration

https://www.europeanpoetryfestival.com/versopolis25 Versopolis in London : a Camarade poetry event at The Poetry Society Cafe, London : March 12th 2025. A special standalone Camarade event, where Versopolis poets visiting from multiple nations presented new works made with UK-based poet pairs - a series of premiere performances of literary and experimental poetry, all at the brilliant Poetry Society Cafe in the heart of the Covent Garden. A privilege to represent the brilliant Versopolis in London for the fourth time, bringing poets from Austria, Italy, Croatia and beyond to collaborate. A packed house and everyone had a proper go. I got to work with the brilliant Krisjanis Zelgis, who came over from Latvia, for the 5th time. We built off our last collaboration last summer, trying a kind of poetry gymnastics. Kind of. It went down well in the small intimate environs of the poetry basement.

A note on : Launching Goblins in Chinatown

For the monthly Broken Sleep Books online launch reading, held on February 28th 2025, I joined the zoom meeting from Chinatown in London and walked the streets while reading. I find zoom readings to be strange, and had my fill during the pandemic, so always now try to innovate them as I do in person performances. This one involved me listening to the other readers in my favourite alley in Chinatown, while Aaron Kent hosted, and then getting to M&M land amongst other places. Weird audio AI seems to have cut out all background noise, giving it a eerie vibe, and in retrospect maybe I wouldnt have held the phone camera under my nose, but it is what it is. A strange short film

A note on : Launching Goblins at the Poetry Society

Really a lovely night at the Poetry Society, thanks to them for having us, and for all the brilliant readers from broken sleep’s list, and for the bustling, friendly crowd who came along to watch. Book launches can be difficult, I’ve found. But this was light. All readings, all good work, and I read, a rare occurrence, to emphasise a bit of the poems in the book I was flogging.

All the readings are up together here https://www.writerskingston.com/poetrycafe/

and my book is here awaiting you https://www.brokensleepbooks.com/product-page/sj-fowler-goblins

National Gallery - March 14th with Stewart Lee and co

https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/events/friday-lates-tour-and-poetry-readings-sj-fowler-and-guests-14-03-2025

Following a series of Friday Lates events last year, poet and performer SJ Fowler returns to the Gallery to read new ekphrastic poems written in response to paintings, offering alternative interpretations of their meaning, history and standing of 18th-century British art in our collection.

Fowler is joined by Gallery Educator Fiona Alderton and invited guests from Writers’ Kingston, including students from Kingston University and further afield, for a tour and poetry performances around the Gallery. Speakers include Zara Auckbaraullee, Lily Ferret and Stewart Lee.

A note on : Exhibition opening event - Visual Stories

https://www.writerskingston.com/exhibitionevent/

A really brilliant event to celebrate an exhibition I had a hand in curating at Kingston University. A weird snappy range of readings and performances, some people giving their first ever readings and others doing some high level stuff. Worth watching the videos at the link.

For my stuff, I was super tired after lecturing all day, so I did a meta talking performance and just went with it, somehow ending up slapping a wall.

A note on : Visual Stories Exhibition

https://www.writerskingston.com/exhibition Writing Cultures presents Festival of Storytelling Visual Stories : An Exhibition at The Platform Gallery, Knight’s Park. February 18th to February 25th 2025.

Tise exhibition explores visual storytelling, and how innovative methodologies around language, design, composition can amplify and extend the ways in which we read, and see, a story or tale. The exhibition presents concrete poetry alongside word clouds, abstract art alongside asemic writing, and firmly emphasises what is possible when we no longer take for granted what a story is, on the page, canvas, wall.

Eleanor Wilders / Danica Ignacio / Bella Weerasinghe / Sinnead Singson / Harper Stringer / Patrick Cosgrove / Jules Sprake / Cameron Wade / Lisa Blackwell / Mark Rutter / Laura Davis / Matt Sokulsky / Alban and Natalie Low / Sara Upstone / Regina Avendano / Oscar Rodriguez / Julia Rose Lewis / Steven J. Fowler. The exhibition is curated by Steven J Fowler and conceived by Sara Upstone and Kate Scott. It is co-curated by Cameron Wade, Eleanor Wilders and Danica Ignacio.

A note on : Japan 2025

Really special to be going back to Tokyo and Kyoto this April for a number of gigs in Japan.

The first of which has been announced for April 26th, a special collaborative event with musicians local to the Tokyo scene and myself and other poets.

The event has been kindly curated by MIYA at https://gekkasha-jinbocho.modalbeats.com/ Steven J Fowler / Colin Herd / Yoshihiko Hogyoku (Poet） Hirokazu Yamaguchi (Guitar) Yuki Chiyama (Satumabiwa) /MIYA (Modular Flute) Open 19:00 Start 19:30 Adv￥2,800 door¥3,300 reservations https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfYZhsBsCuXP3-wxGclLPpKP5rkUJnZG8GEcCCXqIoFSELXaA/viewform

A note on : Teaching sound poetry in Oslo with Bard Torgersen

The fourth time I have had the privilege to teach alongside Bard Torgersen for his course at Hoyskolen Kristiania in Oslo. It is no exaggeration to say that my earlier trips to work with Bard and his students have changed my pedagogy at large. The nature of his program of teaching, and the structure of the contact time (it being full days with the students, consecutively, not restricted lectures, weekly, and there being so much freedom that the content can be improvised in collaboration with the students in situe) allowed me to imagine things in my regular work in the UK I simply would not have otherwise. Each time I have returned to London with new ideas.

A lot of this is specifically down to Bard himself. He is a very inspiring collaborator. He balances a palpable and sincere care for his students with a sense of active responsibility that they should be challenged, aesthetically, intellectually, emotionally, psychologically. There isn’t a knowing bone in his body, and his students are exposed to such a complex idea of what literature is, given in such an authentic and committed mode.

Each year we’ve worked together we’ve taken on a completely different subject. At first it was film, and this devolved into a frankly provocative and emotional meta-narrative which echoed early Dogme films. Then we did theatre, and the students ended up performing to a packed audience after a few days work presenting brand new plays. Then it was collaborative poetry and performance, and we curated a big Camarade in Oslo, blending the students with poets and artists well established across Scandinavia.

For this year, we chose sound poetry, perhaps the most intensive, emotive, vulnerable of the mediums to put in front of startled students. It was such a wonderful experience in the end. The students were brave, attentive, kind hearted and very mature. After a day of lectures and videos they then worked in groups, rehearsing, with one to one mentoring, and then they performed a series of sound poetry duets. The standard was so high, professional even, and the most important element was how seriously they took themselves. Here are some of the performances that the students were happy to be filmed and put on youtube.

Once again a superb experience, I hope the fourth time teaching with Bard becomes a fifth, and that I’m able to stay in touch with some of the students, who showed great talent and unfailing hospitality toward me.

A note on : National Gallery Late commission I 2025

Really special are these events with the National Gallery. It was meself, friend and brilliant writer Eley Williams, and two wonderful young student poets from Kingston Uni - Sinnead Singson and Bella Weerasinghe - who did themselves proud, in front of their extremely gracious and proud families. We had a huge crowd again, three figures plus, and it just works really well as a format, walking and talking to the paintings and so much of that is down to curator Joseph Kendra and our wonderhost Fiona Alderton. I wrote new poem, as for the past 7 events, this time on Rembrandt’s ecce homo and Cornelis van Haarlem’s dragon munch painting.

A note on : Writers Kingston storytelling event and Eleanor Wilders' debut

A grand time was had for Writers Kingston’s 85th event and the first time hosted by the Curzon cinema in Kingston. Such a beautiful venue, and so generous to us.

The event theme was innovative Storytelling and it was a great mix of students, alumni and locals. https://www.writerskingston.com/story/

The special finish to the event was the launch of Eleanor Wilders’ debut publication, entitled Offal, from Sampson Low limited. This series has been such a highlight of my work at Kingston Uni and Eleanor is one of the most talented, hard-working and mature people I’ve had the pleasure to work with.

For my own part I did some on the spot quick waffly nonsense talking poem.

A note on : Photographs by Alexander Kell from Sound Poetry event

Some amazing double exposures of Phil Minton and I, and wonderful to have these portraits too, of Phil and I, as a memento. And such a wonderful group of people in the team photos. Alexander has been documenting my live work for nearly 15 years now, and he’s always so extraordinarily talented. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhUVgiGAeco

A note : Goblins live launch - February 27th at Poetry Society

https://www.stevenjfowler.com/goblins Goblins : a launch at The Poetry Society Cafe - February Thursday 27th 2025, 7pm start - Free

poetrysociety.org.uk/poetry-cafe 22 Betterton Street, London, United Kingdom WC2H 9BX

A night of performance and poetry, and a first reading of Goblins, for it’s official launch at the home of the Poetry Society in the heart of Covent Garden. The event will also feature multiple Broken Sleep Books authors reading from their recently released publications, with Julia Rose Lewis, James Byrne, Katy Mack, Rushika Wick, David Spittle and Cat Woodward. These poets will also be joined by editor of Long Poem magazine, Linda Black, who previously published an excerpt of Goblins, alongside Kingston University students Danica Ignacio, Eleanor Wilders and Sinnead Singson, who will be launching her debut publication Hot Milky from Sampson Low Ltd.

Goblins is available here https://www.brokensleepbooks.com/product-page/sj-fowler-goblins

Goblins - a new poetry collection

My next poetry collection is now available for pre-order before being launched late February 2025. It’s called GOBLINS and is published by Broken Sleep Books.

https://www.brokensleepbooks.com/product-page/sj-fowler-goblins (is only a tenner)

It’s my 12th poetry collection and 3rd with Broken Sleep and it’s the final part of a trilogy of long poem collections with a conceptual structure or theme.

“Released February 28th, 2025 // 100 pages // 978-1-916938-78-6 // RRP: £ A young employee of GCHQ sweeps the internet for your secrets. Disappointed, they turn to poetry. Disappeared, their poems somehow end up in the lap of Steven J. Fowler, then into the hands of a journalist, then into the gloves of a less vulnerable benefactor, to reach your eyes, here and now, in this book, to be almost ignored, as most things are. Goblins is as much a poetry collection as a sardonic belly tickle for the rank underside of our online reality. Four long weird poems, each named after a particularly rampant surveillance program, considers the paradoxes of life lived in the age of the internet, when the line between public and private disintegrates and inexorable harvesting of our digital lives is a given. Sinister and playful, ambiguous and precise, these poems ponder the consequences for the watchers and the watched.” 

A note on the writing of the book. Some of these texts include fragments that are a dozen years old and others were written just months ago. Goblins has its roots in what was once singular poems in a book called that which dont concern you, all named after surveillance programs. It also took some material from writings on apocalypses, and one section appeared in long poem magazine, called Ragnarok. Another section was written in one sitting at Dublin music week, watching performances. Another was written for an English PEN commission. The meta-essay that finishes the book, which is supposed to be the only thing written by me, officially, came to me in one go too, after new year’s in I think 2018. The construction of collections as enterprises beyond a series if singular poems has become important to me, creating innovative structures as well as texts, and letting them warp and change and mature and evolve into a final form, because of an idea that follows years of sometimes very different writing. The process of synthesising texts - a kind of self collage - is as important to me as utilising the skills of others whom I rely on as outside editors, poets far more patient than I, This has become my process in recent years, to synthesise and self collage and write through over and again and then get hyper critical outside eyes, asking them to suggest slash and burn edits. Multiple people help me do this. So really this book is many different bursts of writing over many years in many styles, all with one concern or theme. Then it is an intense editorial writing phase turning them into synthesised chapters or long poems. Then it is cutting and working and reworking based on the editorial feedback of others. So in some sense like a fiction process, but not. Decidedly not. The length and intricacy of the long poems are the thing here, as I know they are challenging for some readers who are used to concision. But it is that expanse which draws the process out into something ambitious, wild and rhythmic. These poems are meant to build pace, to almost echo one act dialogues, though they are not that at all either. All this said, I see this book as the last of it’s kind for a significant time to come, so I hope those who read it enjoy it.

A note on : Dueting with Phil Minton and sound poetry event

a really lovely evening at the poetry society’s poetry cafe with loads of great new sound poetry performances https://www.writerskingston.com/sound24/

i had the pleasure of dueting with Phil Minton for the fifth time and I think it was one of our best ones. very cool Alban Low did these drawings of us too, and lots of the other performers https://artofjazz.blogspot.com/2024/12/sound-poetry-and-sonic-literature.html?m=1

A note on : Brussels Camarade

https://www.europeanpoetryfestival.com/brussels really great to see the Camarade format in events outside of the UK, and curated by someone else, in this case the brilliant Laura Davis, who put together this event in Brussels with local poets and some visiting writers. I think the Camarade has been used in Munich and others cities in Europe when I havent been there, which is a huge compliment, and seeing it happening like this still, 15 years after I came up with it, is a cool thing

A note on : Alban Low portraits

Alban Low - the brilliant artist, performer, editor - and friend to Writers Kingston, and myself, and so so many people in that community, has often drawn portraits of the readers at those events, while they are performing. He then shares these amazing gifts to the poets (some of whom are reading for the first time, and then receive these!) on his site, as he did recently after our Kingston Camarade https://artofjazz.blogspot.com/2024/11/the-kingston-camarade-kingston.html

This led me back to think about how often Alban has done this, and how often he has drawn me performing, and how these portraits have been markers for our work together, and our friendship. Alban is a truly remarkable person, always helping others, generating new projects, giving energy, being present, turning up, delivering. He is someone I deeply admire, fully engaged in his passions, humble in his talent. He’s inspiring to be around. And looking back at the portraits, eight I have found, from over the last number of years, a remarkable set of mementoes. You can also find more on Alban here https://albanlow.wordpress.com/