A note on: Reading in Beijing

The Chinese Culture Translation and Studies Support Festival & Conference – April 2016: A fascinating week spent in China on the invitation of the CCTSS in Beijing, who try to create cross-nation collaboration with a view to bringing more Chinese contemporary poetry to countries outside of China, and to collaborate in doing so. This was designed as a mini-festival and conference, with literary organisers, poets, translators and publishers from across the world coming to share their experience, expertise and approaches. Overall, it was admirably informal and open, full of frank discussion between the participants and with a host of adventures in and around Beijing in between readings and panels. 

I've written a kind of travelogue here www.stevenjfowler.com/beijing

Novi Sad Poetry Festival - a diary

Not 100% this actually happened. Not sure how to situate myself fresh off another near week away, this time in Novi Sad, in the north of Serbia. It did happen of course, but bracketed, as these things often are (lots of strangers, together, in a hotel of fading glory, in a place some find exotic, some intimidating etc..) but more so. More so than normal for me, and I often seek these things out, their intensity of exchange and potential for private experience and exploration very attractive to me. I can meet new and interesting poets, people local to the place, retire early each night, write a lot, and feel engaged in quite a profound way. But this trip was somehow more and less intense.

My 4th time in Serbia, and the first for poetry, the first I didnt pay loads to get there etc... and I'm older now. It made a difference somehow. Difficult to convey the subtle change in my perception of a place I was once very enamoured with. Silly of me to make generalisations, but I spent this trip seeking conversations and contact, and made them, and found many to be contradictory or even worrying in places. Moreover, while I had told friends this might be a trip that sits to the Right of my practise, an Old poetry festival, 9 years old (2005 beginning) and so starting just in the midst of a new era of Serbia, perhaps the reality of that being true did take me slightly aback. The grandeur of poetry and those who think themselves grand in that light is quite bearable, more funny for its absurdity than offensive, but still, not a cushion to my proclivities. And I enjoyed hospitality and kindness, but I also experienced a palpable sense of obstinate assuredness and martyrdom from young Serbs I had assumed to be the ideal liberal voices. Yet the whole experience was very joyful, I felt very present in Novi Sad, ate amazingly, ran the length of the Danube, spent a half dozen hours a day in conversation, and as ever a privilege to be invited and to engage with a new place and people, and travel, through the mad irrelevance of what I write.

I was delighted to be there with Mark Waldron, a friend through poetry, but how much do we know these kind people we meet at readings? I got to really know him in Novi Sad, for that alone, all was magical. We shared many meals, many British complaints as gentle shows of affection, many jokes, and wide ranging discussions on many things I don't often speak about. He is as humble as he is brilliant. I also got to meet some extraordinary poets from around the world, Mexico, Poland, Colombia, Denmark, and on. And some of those involved in the festival were hard pressed and lovely, overworked and bright and friendly and hospital. It was a human experience. Novi Sad itself looks beautiful to my eye, more Habsburg than Belgrade, and it was boiling hot. And I got to walk the banks of the Danube in yet another city. I climbed the hills to the fortress, perused the communist museum, rambled into the suburbs and housing estates. 

We read in a public square, under a massive chinese arch, to mixed audience, public and poets, small and large. I tried to entertain during my reading, but only between the normal miserablist / disjunctive poetry. It was gently, quietly received. On the final night, Mark read and then we were shuffled to the national Serbian slam championships, and I was slowly tortured before reading myself and deadening the crowd with my lack of emotion. It was a firm summation of the whole experience of the festival, a place too full of nostalgia that can't help but pass some of that onto you, and that's a vivid emotional experience, even if its one I often resist.

Auld Enemies diary - Kirkwall

After a day of exploring the sights of the Shetland mainland we boarded another ferry south, much more comfortable a journey this time, to Kirkwall in Orkney. We stayed in more wonderfully comfy B&Bs and I went on a night walk just after arriving late, taking in the pedestrian town centre and the awesome St Magnus Cathedral. We met Ross' friend Amy Liptrot, a brilliant writer who is from and has lived on the island for the last few years after being in London and Edinburgh. To have someone show such generosity in showing us the epic stones of Brodcar, the archaeological dig nearby and a trip up to the Kitchener monument and the nearby Puffin cliffs, places we never would have got to in one day by ourselves, carless, really transformed the experience of the place. An amazing beauty the island possesses was given context by Amy and her knowledge and her experience of the place, her closeness to it. We caught her just before she was apart to depart too. The reading itself was another intimate and pleasant affair, the very generous Pam Beasant hosting and contributing, and we did a round robin reading of sorts, with only 4 of us remaining. After departing the library we all flopped into a local chinese, that looked like a shipping container with a sign, and reflected on a really brilliant, unexpectedly touching, week or so on tour together. Sad to see it come to a close in Scotland, we said our goodbyes that night. 

Auld Enemies Kirkwall
nick-e melville & Colin Herd & Ross Sutherland & I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkVfrWtSLMQ
Rosie Alexander & Rosemary Merriman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2C0NqXaSLHI
Pam Beasant & Lydia Harris https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjKp7E7aXXg

Chinese avant garde poetry at the Poetry Cafe - June 18th

Really honoured that Ill be reading the English translations of Jiang Tao's work at the Poetry Cafe. Come along to this free event, and get a small insight into contemporary experimental Chinese poetry. http://www.poetrysociety.org.uk/events/event/2696/

One Hundred Years of New Poetry in China

Visiting poets from China will read their poems and discuss their work. Featuring Jiang Tao and Ming Di.

Organised in association with Oxford Brookes University, it will be introduced by Jennifer Wong, a first year PhD student at Oxford Brookes University, studying contemporary Asian diaspora poetry and the power of ethnicity. S J Fowler will read from Jiang Tao's work and Jennifer Wong will also read some of her poetry.