A note on: The Essex Book Festival - Sunday March 20th 2016

About as nice a way as one can spend a Sunday. I had the pleasure, thanks to the generosity of Philip Terry, Ros Green, Jo Nancarrow, those behind the Essex Book Festival and University of Essex, to curate a Camarade event for the festival. I had the chance to bring poets from London and Manchester to Colchester, but also draw on lots of local talent. In the end, the works were held in an amazing venue, a huge auditorium in the Firstsite Gallery, and the performances were really distinct and interesting, all very complimentary, a range of voices and styles. 

It was especially satisfying to see so many poets discover new poets, and to reconnect to those who live in Essex whose work I admire so much like Townley and Bradby, who I had the pleasure to work with in a performance in 2015, who did a brilliant performance with their family, and Isabella Martin, Vicki Weitz, Justin Hopper, Lucy Greeves and many others. All the performances are available here www.theenemiesproject.com/essex

Mahu: to Tom Raworth - June Tues 7th: the videos

Petrarch: a celebration of Tim Atkins, the videos

A magical evening, one of the best Ive been a part of, ever. It could not have been more joyous, funny, brilliant. It felt like a family, let alone a real community. All because of the human being Tim is, the way he has taught a generation of poets and peers to cut through the misanthropy to the warmth that permeates through his poetry and his persona. So proud to have been part of this evening, all 19 poets read so wonderfully, all worth watching. 
Chris Gutkind https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fkryQdk42E

Petrarch: a celebration of Tim Atkins - the lineip

Come along, June 28th, 7pm onwards, free! 
http://www.richmix.org.uk/whats-on/event/petrarch--a-celebration-of-tim-atkins/ These are the wonderful poets who will be reading from Tim's collected Petrarch poems.
Peter Jaeger / Carol Watts / Philip Terry / Chris Gutkind / Andrea Brady / Sam Walton / Robert Kiely / Marcus Slease / Michael Zand / Jow Lindsay / Juha Virtanen / Stephen Emmerson / Lucy Harvest Clarke / James Wilkes / Holly Pester / Jeff Hilson / Tim Atkins

Petrarch & this summer's events

Please join us on June 28th at the Rich Mix Arts Centre for an exploration of the work of the poet Tim Atkins and the launch of his collected Petrarch from Crater press. The entirety of one of the most remarkable poetic projects of our era will be brought together for the first time in a 400 page book, as we take a rare chance to celebrate one of the most brilliant and generous living British vanguard poets in Tim Atkins. http://www.craterpress.co.uk/
The reading will feature well over a dozen poets reading from Tim’s Petrarch works, including Peter Jaeger, Philip Terry, Andrea Brady, Marcus Slease and Jeff Hilson, and the man itself of course. http://www.richmix.org.uk/whats-on/event/petrarch--a-celebration-of-tim-atkins/
& if anyone's kind enough to come …
 June 5th: I’ll be performing and conducting workshops in Riga, Latvia for the Totaldobze projecthttp://www.totaldobze.com/ curated by Kaspars Lielgalvis, followed by readings in Vilnius and Talinn, in a minitour of the Baltic.
June 16th: For the Generative Constraints Committee via Royal Holloway, I’ll be performing / speaking about violence (& poetry) at the CC4C http://creative-collaboration.net/ in Kings X, alongside Sasha Roseneil, chaired by Prudence Chamberlain, in an evening called 'About the Stand-Off’ from 6.30pm.
June 20th: I’ll be speaking about the Enemies project before reading in the evening at the Midsummer Poetry Festival in Sheffield. http://www.midsummerpoetryfestival.co.uk/ 6.30pm onwards
June 24th: For the remarkable Translation Games project I’ll be leading workshops with Ricarda Vidal on transmedia translation at the Guildhall school, Barbican, as part of the Cultural Capital Exchange conferencehttp://translationgames.net/?page_id=346
June 25th: As part of the Science Museum’s amazing Exponential Horn installation, I’ll be performing a new conceptual / soundart / noise piece at the Museum, to be recorded by Resonance FM & the BBC. 7pm onwards.http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/exponentialhorn
June 26th: I’ll be reading at the Bookart bookshop in Old St. London, http://www.bookartbookshop.com/ to celebrate the incredible POW series edited by Antonio Claudio Carvalho, which was recently completed. Lots more info on the series here by Chris McCabe http://chris-mccabe.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/pow-final-series-perrone-melville-vas.html 7pm onwards
June 27th: I’ll be reading as part of the BAMS international Modernism now! conference, at the CC4C introducing & reading from the modernist poets who have influenced my work http://www.ies.sas.ac.uk/events/ies-conferences/ModernismNowThe program is called ‘Make it Now: A Modernist Reading by Four Contemporary Poets’ and begins at 7.30pm.
 
July 3rd: Very happy to be curating a celebration of the great Czech avant garde writer Bohumil Hrabal through the Czech Centre London, at the Horse Hospital in Bloomsbury, which will feature brand new commissions from Zoe Skoulding, Sarah Kelly, Stephen Emmerson, Marcus Slease, Tom Jenks & others. More to come. http://www.thehorsehospital.com/
July 9th to 17th: Auld Enemies – a cross nation collaboration, a tour of Scotland with six poets writing in rolling pairs and inviting locals to Camarade – Dundee, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Orkneys, Shetland. Much more to come… Supported by Creative Scotland.
July 26th: Auld Enemies in London. At the Rich Mix Arts Centre a collaborative poetic celebration of Scottish contemporary experimental poetry and the events and works of the Auld Enemies tour. http://www.richmix.org.uk/whats-on/event/auld-enemies--the-enemies-project-scottish-poetry/
August 7th: At the Whitechapel gallery, I'll be performing my short story MueuM, which was up for the white review prize this year, readable here http://www.thewhitereview.org/fiction/mueum/ alongside Holly Pester, Kristen Kreider and Patrick Coyle.


Poets as Saints - Erkembode exhibition reading


Sarah Kelly - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ylug5cVA81I
Marcus Slease - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3073DcMsjI0
Tim Atkins - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbpK4XxtZe8
David Berridge - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbGOlqN9dgk
Held at the Hardy Tree gallery in Kings X, London on November 23rd 2013, for the Erkembode: not just another saint exhibition, a series of poetry readings from contemporary British vanguard poets who have collaborated or worked closely with the artist David Kelly www.erkembode.com including poetry from Marcus Slease, Holly Pester, SJ Fowler, David Berridge, Robert Kiely, Tim Atkins & Sarah Kelly.

from the Secretum Meum with Tim Atkins in Summerstock issue 7



Livestock Editions is pleased as huckleberry pie to announce the release of Summer Stock, Issue 7: UK Poetry Dossier (Available at www.summerstockjournal.com). Curated by Livestock editor Elizabeth Guthrie, this year’s online poetry crop offers exciting explorations & currencies in experimental poetry from the United Kingdom.
Issue 7 features wild woolly bully writing & literary multimedia from these Brit All Stars: Tim Atkins. Sean Bonney. Paul Buck. Becky Cremin. Laura Foster Twigg. Chris Gutkind. Alan Hay. Jeff Hilson. Peter Jaeger. Antony John. Sarah Kelley. David Kelly. Fabian Macpherson. Sophie Mayer. Richard Parker. Jessica Pujol. Nat Raha. Connie Scozzaro. Marcus Slease.  Linus Slug. James Wilkes. Steve Willey. & a collaboration between Steven Fowler & Tim Atkins.
We dedicate this year’s issue to the memory of beloved poet/translator/critic/advisor Anselm Hollo, who passed away earlier this year. Anselm’s life of radical outrider poetry is a shining inspiration to all of us at Livestock. We love you and miss you, Anselm.

Enemies: mini-lecture poetics

There is a profound, calming and inspiring core of poets and writers active in London right now. There is no way to see the current scene as anything but expansive and exciting. The hope with this event was that the form, which was intended as non-academic, personal and informal, would showcase the people behind the poetry and allow a wider audience access to discussions which were fascinating but also gentle in their direction and scope. So it proved to be, with the audience sat on the floor around Tim Atkins, Peter, Jaeger, James Wilkes and Marcus Slease in turn. The feeling afterward was one of real community, and that was well appreciated when it really seemed, because the Voice art event was so spectacular and memorable, that there might be a quiet shadow over things. 

Vídeos de los enemigos

A very literary event, interesting to hear the translations in Spanish. The event was rescued by two lovely Spanish speaking poets living in London. Thanks to them. Jeff Hilson http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iq9i8ao5ZoA