A note on: A performance for Jerome Rothenberg

What an immense pleasure this was. To have the chance to celebrate Jerome Rothenberg, his influence on me, and on so many people, it was a beautiful night all told. 

The event was held at Birkbeck College, London, hosted by the Contemporary Poetics Research Centre (www.bbk.ac.uk/cprc) on October 17th 2016. Organised by the centre's director, Dr. Steve Willey.

For my performance I carefully selected poems taken from Rothenberg's 1974 collection Poland/1931 and 1978 collection Seneca Journal and after much deliberation, I interspersed them with my own poems that responded / related to these works as influences. In the live performance, the poems were glued to paper to form two long poems, and then illustrated. Then for the last few minutes, wonderfully, Jerome joined me in the painting.

I had the pleasure to then spend a day with Jerome and his wife Diane in London and really feel inspired and humbled by their extraordinary lifetime of travelling, writing and following a path any of us would be lucky to follow. 

A note on: Reading with Jerome Rothenberg in London at Birkbeck College

The Technicians of the Sacred to Barbaric Vast & Wild: celebrating the work of Jerome Rothenberg
Monday 17th October, Birkbeck College : Room B34, Malet St Campus, London WC1E 7HX
Free Entrance : 7:30pm

A great privilege to be reading alongside one of the greats of world poetry, Jerome Rothenberg. An enormous influence on countless poets, his impact on how we conceive of poetry since WWII is unbridled. During this reading Rothenberg will present a series of poems termed 'variations' and 'auto-variations' demonstrating the connections between his work as an anthologist and a poet, while I will read from his works and those of my own which his have influenced.

The event is hosted by Steve Willey of the Contemporary Research Poetics Centre, Birkbeck College, and for further details email s.willey@bbk.ac.uk or visit the event facebook page.

Prior to the reading, from 6pm - 7.20pm there will be a seminar presentation and discussion in the same location. Jerome Rothenberg will present a review of his work as an anthologist from Technicians of the Sacred (1968) to his most recent anthology Barbaric Vast & Wild: Poems for the Millennium Volume Five (2015). This will be followed by an open discussion centred around ethnopoetics and what Rothenberg calls 'omnipoetics' with a particular focus on questions of translation. A rare opportunity in London, also free to attend.

Jerome Rothenberg is an internationally celebrated poet, translator, anthologist, and performer with over ninety books of poetry and twelve assemblages of traditional and avant-garde poetry such as Technicians of the Sacred, Shaking the Pumpkin (traditional American Indian poetry), Exiled in the Word (a.k.a. A Big Jewish Book), and, with Pierre Joris and Jeffrey Robinson, Poems for the Millennium, volumes 1-3. He was a founding figure of ethnopoetics as a combination of poetic practice and theory, and he has been a longtime practitioner and theorist of poetry performance. His most recent big books are Eye of Witness: A Jerome Rothenberg Reader (2013) and Barbaric Vast & Wild: Outside & Subterranean Poetry from Origins to Preset (volume 5 of Poems for the Millennium, 2015). A new book of poems, A Field on Mars: Poems 2000-2015, has just appeared in separate English and French editions. http://poemsandpoetics.blogspot.co.uk/

Archive interview at British Library / Seminar interview at St Martins college

Two ephemeral and pleasurable things I've done in the last week, intertwined with two powerful powerful friends / peers. First I stopped off at the British library to speak at length with Hannah Silva, who is working with the BL archives to conduct research into performance in 21st British poetry and other such things. Though it's uncomfortable at times, putting into words my own approaches to work, so much of which is deliberately kept expressionistic and instinctual, for lack of time, and for a desire to keep rooting things in their experience of being made, rather than their result (believing the latter will emerge from the former, if done right, without too much of a heavy editorial hand), the process is undoubtedly good for me. If only to realise where I am heading, and why that is happening. We also chatted more widely about performance poetry, and my dislike of it. Hannah is such a remarkable performer, and she has such possession of her ideas, it makes working with her in any capacity a beneficial experience. The interview will be in the library's records until the end of the world apparently.

Then later in the week I was part of a seminar series for undegrads at St Martins, taught by Diane Silverthorne, whose amazing work Ive got to know over the last few years and who has become a friend and great influence on my reading and dwarfish erudition. We chatted through my root into poetry, and then art performance in front of around 40 students, most of whom were impeccably dressed (St Martins is like a fashion show, so beyond being a trendy enclave, its become something bizarrely retrograde in its futurism. It is often like walking through a successful genetic experiment, some benign social engineering program, where only beautiful and attractive young beings mope about concrete stairwells) and possibly interested, though it was hard to tell until I spoke to them. I talked about audience participation, nearly forced them to participate, then showed some vids of my boxing performances. It was again a funny experience, one where I learned something by being forced to waffle about what I do and am trying to do. The people were lovely, very gentle with me. And it always feels a privilege to be inside an institution like this, if only for a day, to watch multitudes try and inculcate creativity. It also doesn't hurt to realise how old I have become.

Rest is Noise festival - on Thomas Bernhard & the Black Mountain college

A day of two halves. The first, a bite talk, 15 minutes on Thomas Bernhard. It was a failed experiment. I overwrote the content, wanting it to be so good because of the passion I have for Bernhard, and was far too loyal to the text. I was boring. The art of lecturing is a practice I am engaged in learning. You learn more from a 'loss' I suppose. Still annoying to speak so poorly about an author I love so much, and if anyone stayed awake through my monotone the actual content had some moments of insight I hope. / I then went on to chair a panel on the Black Mountain college with Alyce Mahon from Cambridge Uni, and my old friends Tim Atkins and Peter Jaeger. It was a brilliant hour, fluid, insightful and balanced. Each speaker brought information from differing perspectives, and were all very generous with their thoughts. Peter offered real insight into John Cage and Zen, Alyce opened up the history of the school with its creative spark offset by administrative suicide, and Tim told everyone that poets killed the college. The list of alumni or teaching staff is unbelievable - Duncan, Olsen, Williams, Cage, Cunningham, Albers, Twombly, Creeley, de Kooning, Rauschenberg, Dorn. The questions were also very positive, and we ended up talking about the modern state of the education system and how restricted it is, against such a hotbed of radical innovation and collaboration as the BMC. / The rest is noise is an awesome opportunity to open up so many discussions that rarely get such a platform. Next up, Walter Abish and Jack Spicer in November

Enemies: Contemporary Poetics Research Centre

Really hot, really well attended - a beautiful atmosphere of exchange. The reading celebrated the groundbreaking Contemporary Poetics Research Centre at Birkbeck College, University of London, a rare academic entity which facilitates the research and understanding of innovative and dynamic poetry happening in the present day. http://www.bbk.ac.uk/cprc/