Published : Four poems on the films of Peter Greenaway

Peter Greenaway’s work is hugely important to me - his austerity, his excess, his style, his unapologetic intellectual concerns, his irreverence, his obsession with language (which is poetry at times) and his exploration of writing, calligraphy and asemia. I’ve written poems about his films for the last few years, in a kind of suite or sequence, ranging in methodologies.

In my latest collection - COME AND SEE THE SONGS OF STRANGE DAYS - released in March with Broken Sleep books I have 6 poems dedicated to his works. 3 of them, plus a poem on a documentary made about him by his partner Saskia Boddeke, have been kindly published online by Partisan Hotel, edited by Dominic Jaeckle. They include a long literary poem about THE FALLS, then a hand-written documentary poem about DROWNING BY NUMBERS and an ASEMIC WATER POEM about PROSPERO’S BOOKS https://partisanhotel.co.uk/Fowler-for-Greenaway

My performance at the Museum of Water, Somerset House, for Penned in the Margins

a new performance, on commission for the Museum of Water at Somerset House, my piece was about the introduction of water cannons to the repertoire of British police, to be used against protestors, in a typically heinous and bizarre decision by Boris Johnson. With sounds, and a slowed video of a protestor in gezi park getting smashed by a water cannon, i read a new text while intermittedly holding my breath to the point of pain in a bowl of water. The message is clear, I hope. I made a mess. Deep fun was had. It was an intimate room and again, no idea how it went down. The others works on the day were really interesting too, got to see Alison Gibb, JR Carpenter, Ruth Padel amongst them, a fine curatorial job by Tom Chivers and Nick Murray of Penned in the Margins. http://www.museumofwater.co.uk/

Museum of Water at Somerset House - June 21st

So pumped for this, I will be reading a new poem while intermittently trying to drown myself. What a lineup too. http://www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk/index.php/2014/02/museum-of-water/

As part Amy Sharrock’s extraordinary Museum of Water at Somerset House, Penned in the Margins curates a packed programme of water-themed poetry and performance. Join us in the spoken word room from midday for nautical field recordings, durational water performances, and poems inspired by rivers, estuaries, sewers and the sea. A detailed schedule will be announced soon.

JR Carpenter re-sounds the islands, flying jellyfish drones and nautical field recordings of her underwater digital project Etheric Ocean in a live poly-vocal performance with poet Alison Gibb.

Faber New Poet Jack Underwood and sound poet Holly Pester collaborate on a one-off durational performance: a poem for two voices about the water we share and the water between us

Award-winning writer Ruth Padel reads estuarine poetry from her collections The Mara Crossing, The Soho Leopard and Fusewire

Claire Trevien composes poems live in response to the exhibition and reads from her book The Shipwrecked House, inspired by the sea and her Breton maritime heritage

Canal Laureate and narrow-boat dweller Jo Bell reads poetry informed by living on water

SJ Fowler rails against the Water Cannon with an original poem in between self-drowning sctivities

Siddhartha Bose reads poetry inspired by the holy rivers of the Thames and the Ganges

Justin Hopper explores sea disasters in the Thames estuary and follows hidden currents of Pittsburgh in his poem-projects Public Record and Fourth River: Ley Line

Tom Chivers reads from Flood Drain – his psychogeographical poem about the river Hull – and shares his experiences of leading ‘urban pilgrimages’ along London’s lost rivers

Early medieval scholars and postgraduates from King’s College London and elsewhere read poems drawn from the Old Water Hoard of Anglo-Saxon poems about water

Schedule

12:30 Claire Trevien
13:00 Jo Bell
13:30 Siddhartha Bose
14:00 Old English Sound Hoard
14:30 Justin Hopper
15:00 Jack Underwood & Holly Pester
15:30 Tom Chivers
16:00 SJ Fowler
16:15 Ruth Padel
16:45 Etheric Ocean by JR Carpenter
17:15 Claire Trevien