A note on: Curating the North by North West Poetry Tour

So happy to be co-curating another Enemies tour in the UK, this time with Tom Jenks, visiting cities in the North and North West of England. It is no exaggeration to say that the presses and poets at the centre of the current modern / avant garde scene in this region have supported and inspired my work as much as anyone else.

So many of the poets, publishers and organisers who have been based there during my time in poetry - people like Tom, Scott Thurston, Alec Newman, James Davies, Sandeep Parmar, James Byrne, Richard Barrett, Tim Allen, Mark Cobley, Nathan Jones, Robert Sheppard, Patricia Farrell, Nikolai Duffy, Philip Davenport, Ben Morris, Chris McCabe, Daniele Pantano -  have been key in my development, both as a poet and as someone trying to understand the best way to organise events. The Other Room series was an early and pivotal inspiration for the Enemies project, and it reflects what I'd happily generalise for poets and readings in the region, that its defined by strong, complex, challenging work underpinned by a very dry sense of humour, and surrounded by unpretentious, friendly people, who believe in a community of writers without talking too much about that.

So it's important to me to keep going back to cities like Liverpool, Sheffield, Manchester, where I've been treated so well so often, as well reading for the first time in cities like York and Leeds. We've got over 60 poets involved, and we'll create over 50 new collaborative works. It's such a pleasure to do, and with the arts council supporting us, it's grand we can do it properly. Visit http://www.theenemiesproject.com/northwest for the full lineups

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The Enemies Project & ZimZalla presents:
A collaborative poetry tour visiting York / Manchester / Edge Hill / Leeds / Sheffield / Liverpool
January 13th - February 11th 2017

The North by North West Poetry Tour features over sixty poets collaborating in pairs to produce brand new collaborative works for performance, commissioned for each event, over six nights in January and February 2017. Poets local to each of the six venues will perform on each night alongside a core group of touring poets, who will perform at every venue. These free events will aim to draw in the amazing, experimental, dynamic resurgence in literary and avant-garde poetry which has so marked the north and north west poetry scene over the last decade. For full details visit this link, or see below:http://www.theenemiesproject.com/northwest

The project is curated by Tom Jenks and SJ Fowler, with local curators Christopher Stephenson, JT Welsch, Linda Kemp and Robert Sheppard. The North West Poetry Tour is supported by Arts Council England.All events are free to attend with doors at 7.30pm for an 8pm start, unless stated otherwise. The poets, pairs and links continue to be updated. 

January Friday 13th - York : City Screen
January Saturday 14th - Manchester : International Anthony Burgess Foundation
January Thursday 19th - Edge Hill Arts Centre
February Thursday 9th - Leeds : Wharf Chambers Co-operative Club
February Friday 10th - Sheffield : Bank St. Arts
February Saturday 11th - Liverpool : Everyman Playhouse

A note on: a new course at Tate Modern - Inventing Rauschenberg

INVENTING RAUSCHENBERG: THE ARTIST AS ENGINEER 20 FEBRUARY – 20 MARCH 2017 BOOK TICKETS

Over five weeks explore the pioneering art of Robert Rauschenberg with the like-minded artist and poet SJ Fowler - Through talks, discussions and practical writing exercises, participants will follow Robert Rauschenberg’s innovations fundamental to twentieth-century art, while surrounded by his work. Inspired equally by poetry, fiction, theatre, sonic art, visual art, installation and performance, Fowler will also draw from the people and places that inspired Rauschenberg’s remarkable and multidisciplinary practice. http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/course/robert-rauschenberg/inventing-rauschenberg-artist-engineer

Discover Rauschenberg’s use of material, his ground-breaking combines, his engagement with popular and global culture beyond the US, his exploration of collaboration at the Black Mountain College, his work in performance, and his telling use of technology. This course is a chance to trace this pioneering artist’s life and continued reinvention, and to explore in their own work the lessons we can draw from his extraordinary legacy.

A note on: teaching at Kingston University

As a lecturer in the Creative Writing department at Kingston University since late 2014 I've the chance to not only share more Avant-Garde, modernist and global writing philosophies, techniques and concepts at an institutional level, but also to help encourage young writers, poets and artists to engage in public events and experiment with their work early in their development. This is hugely important to me and a massive privilege. Moreover Kingston has the most diverse student body of any University in the UK and is a really supportive place to be. 

Long overdue I've created a webpage where videos from students reading at my Enemies project events can be seen with more info on what I teach. http://www.stevenjfowler.com/kingstonuniversity