Blog #5: Gelynion in Bangor: May 26th 2015

May 31, 2015

An incredible drive through Snowdonia, a scenic route for our privilege, Joe, Nia and Eurig accompanied me in from the west coast and up into the mountains. We stopped a few times to hear Eurig’s description of the places, his climbs, and to pose for catalogue model, or boyband-like (I won’t reveal our hypothetical band name), photoshoots. Such beautiful weather, perfect blue skies and though busy, what seemed to me completely pristine country.

Into Bangor, and it struck me as a very charming place, Zoe’s homeland, a University town, but also with its intense population (I saw teen scraps in the highstreet within minutes, sustained) the countryside surrounding encroached and struck me as an oasis of a place in someways. Our reading was the same night as our travelling so we soon visited the Blue Sky Café and Nia and I met Elan Mererid Rhys, the wonderful auto-harp player and folk musician, whom I had come across in Cecil Sharp House in London, by pure chance, a few weeks before, just like Patrick Rimes. Elan could not have been more warm hearted and wonderful to work with, and Nia and I decided to read the 6 way collaborative poem written by the group and published by Hazard press over the playing of Elan, to set everything gently, and it worked out so nicely.

In the end, I think Bangor was my favourite event. The quality of some of the work was so remarkable, the café was packed, 50 or 60 people, or more, and such a memorable assortment of works. Ghazal Mosadeq, who had travelled all the way from London, presented amazing work with Ifor Ap Glyn. Robert Sheppard, who travelled from Manchester, worked with Alys Conran to generate another mysterious European poet. Sophie McKeand, Fiona Cameron, Karen Owen, Sian Northey, really I could list the whole evening. It was a special one.

reading with Sarah Kelly - Ways of Describing Cuts

June 18, 2013

hhoooo at the 77th edition of the longstanding London reading series the Blue Bus, on June 18th 2013, at the Lamb put in Bloomsbury, myself and Sarah Kelly launched our collaborative book 'Ways of Decribing Cut's published by Knives forks and spoons press with this full reading of the text, accompanied by a buddha box. http://www.knivesforksandspoonspress.co.uk/waysofdescribing.html" writing with Sarah was joyful, her gentility and technique brings me away from myself into new arenas, and to revisit this work at least 18 months after we finished it, now she's back from Buenos Aires, and to find it fresh and communicative was lovely. i enjoyed reading with her. our buddha box vedic meditation accompaniment was supplied by david kelly. it's a beautiful object, and feeling pale in the face of clean readings this was the right, respectful way to contextualise this work at a place like the blue bus. it was a long, boiling hot night, i couldnt really sit in the reading, before we read last, and be still with the happening, sometimes i really feel ill at ease in such a room, words just sewering me, but alls well that ends well

The Blue Bus - reading with Sarah Kelly - June 18th, Bloomsbury

June 3, 2013

The Blue Bus is pleased to present a reading by matt martin, Nicolas Spicer and Sarah Kelly, with S J Fowler, on Tuesday 18^th June, from 7.30 at The Lamb (in the upstairs room), 94 Lamb’s Conduit Street, London WC1. This is the seventy-seventh event in THE BLUE BUS series. Admissions: £5 / £3 (concessions).

Sarah Kelly is recently back in the UK after a couple of years living in Argentina. She has contributed to the anthologies 'Better than Language' (Ganzfeld Press) and 'Dear World...' (Bloodaxe), alongside many magazines. She is the author of two chapbooks, 'locklines' (KFS) and 'Ways of Describing Cuts' (KFS), the latter a collaboration with Steven Fowler who will be joining her to read some extracts. Examples of her current work, exploring text and handmade paper, were displayed at the 'Visual Poetics' exhibition (Poetry Library).

S J Fowler, who will be reading alongside Sarah Kelly in the second half of this event, is a poet and artist living in London. He's published four collections of poetry including Fights (Veer books) and Minimum Security Prison Dentistry (AAA press), and has collections forthcoming from Penned in the Margins and Egg Box Publishing. He has been commissioned by the Tate, the London Sinfonietta and Mercy and has read and exhibited across Europe. He curates the Enemies project, supported by the Jerwood Charitable Foundation, and Maintenant, a series of reading and interviews focusing on contemporary European poetics and collaboration. He is currently undertaking a PhD at the Contemporary Poetics Research Centre, Birkbeck College and is an employee of the British Museum.www.sjfowlerpoetry.com www.blutkitt.blogspot.com www.weareenemies.com

Forthcoming events will include Johan de Wit and Antony John (16^th July), Chris McCabe, Andrew Taylor and David Miller (20^th August), Simon Smith, Anthony Mellors and David Rees (17^th September), Laurie Duggan, Andrew Spragg and Peter Philpott (15^th October), and Richard Berengarten, Cristina Viti and Michael Zand (19^thNovember).