EPF 2021 : Event #1 - Writers Kingston in Richmond Park

The European Poetry Festival 2021 opened with the last event of the Writers Kingston program for the academic year. I led around 50 people from the Richmond gate of the park into the long grass, where some were eaten by insects and others haayfevered, but most seemed happy. We then had over a dozen performances from a range of poets, many local to the Kingston area, many students and member of the popogrou collective.

Four publications were also launched this night, by Sylee Gore in absentia, Nina Fidry, Patrick Cosgrove and myself and Karenjit Sandhu.

Watching the sun go down over the park, it was an atmospheric start to the festival punctuated by a genuine feeling of camaraderie and some fantastic live works. All performances are video’s here https://www.europeanpoetryfestival.com/writerskingston

A note on: performance videos from Soundings I & III, with Emma Bennett and Maja Jantar

Two highlights of 2015, amazing performers and artists both Emma and Maja. So excited I get to do 7 more of these collaborations in 2016 with the help of the Hubbub group in residence at Wellcome Collection and Wellcome Library www.stevenfowler.com/soundings

A note on: Soundings #1 with Emma Bennett

The beginning of Soundings couldn't have gone better. Not only because the performance was unique and well attended and went to plan, but because it was also completely idiosyncratic and unexpected for the audience, and enjoyable. Emma and I have known each for a few year now, and been in collective work together, but never performed a duo. The performance itself and the entire preparation period could not have been easier and more fluid. We met up numerous times to make our performance not only responsive to the materials given by the Wellcome Library under the theme of 'Restless Cities' but also to make sure we responded very specifically to the amazing environmental of Camley Street Natural Park.

We knew people's experience of what we did would be defined by the surroundings, and decided in fact to put on a walking tour, one that fused elements of performance and immersive theatre all rooted in something like a slightly alternative version of the contemporary 'landscape' 'cityscape' 'mindfulness' lexicon. Our performance was a mix of improvisation, preparation for this and written text that lay somewhere between poetry and satire.

In the end we had a remarkable audience, those very generously helping us, Harriet Martin, James Wilkes, Kim Staines, bringing together lots of people so that it felt quite a significant event, marching 50 or so people around the small stone clearings and ponds of the park. A strange experience for them, I hope, a great experience for us.

Upcoming: Soundings - a project with Hubbub & Wellcome Library

Soundings is a series of collaborative performances I will be presenting from August 2015 to October 2016, in conjunction with Hubbub and the Wellcome Library. There will be ten editions, each in a different location in and around London, each with a different collaborator.www.stevenjfowler.com/soundings

Soundings

Each edition of Soundings will begin with Wellcome library staff raiding the library's extensive collection to suggest items, including images, manuscripts and books, in response to a title inspired by the Hubbub's research strands and initiated by Hubbub curators. These prompts will form the basis for the public performances of sound poetry, sonic art or conceptual performance, devised each time by myself and my collaborator. Collaborators include Emma Bennett, Dylan Nyoukis, Maja Jantar, Patrick Coyle, Sharon Gal, Tamarin Norwood and James Wilkes, with more to be announced.

Hubbub are the first residents of The Hub at Wellcome Collection, an international team of scientists, humanists, artists, clinicians, public health experts, broadcasters and public engagement professionals. We explore the dynamics of rest, noise, tumult, activity and work, as they operate in mental health, neuroscience, the arts and the everyday. I'm fortunate to be part of this extraordinary enterprise, as a poet and artist in residence, and you can read more about my work with Hubbub here: www.stevenjfowler.com/hubbubor www.hubbubgroup.org 

Soundings #1: August 18th
at Camley Street Natural Park
with Emma Bennett
Time: 1pm – 2pm (12 Camley Street, London N1C 4PW). Free entrance.
www.hubbubgroup.org/soundings

Soundings #2: September 4th 
at Wellcome Collection Late
with Dylan Nyoukis
Time: 19.40 and 21.30 (183 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE). Free Entrance 
www.wellcomecollection.org/events/friday-late-spectacular-hubbub

Soundings #3: November 18th
at St Johns on Bethnal Green
with Maja Jantar
Time: 8pm to 9pm (200 Cambridge Heath Road. London E2 9PA). Free Entrance.
www.stjohnonbethnalgreen.org

a poem in the new Belleville Park Pages

http://www.bellevilleparkpages.com/ One of the neatest, sharpest, most decisive publishing projects I've come across in a long time, The Belleville Park pages, coming out of Paris, has a really distinct identity and in its first year of existence, found its way into some amazing stockists. http://www.bellevilleparkpages.com/#stockists What they're trying to do, a ground up, community model of younger, newer poets, very much open to new people and new work, is admirable, and well executed. Im pleased to be in the last issue of 2013, in the 13th incarnation, with a single poem from Enthusiasm, called Letters to friends. 

Click Here to Buy

Page 13

Mid December

Christmas Gift: Nina Mazodier

Writers: Anita Olivia Koester, Z.W.T. Evans, James Coghill, Matt Appleby, Rufo Quintavalle, Laura Perrem, Zelda Chappel, SJ Fowler, T. Isaac, G