from November saturday 13th 2015 at Shoreditch Town Hall, photos by Ludo des Cognets.
A note on: The EVP Sessions & The Black Dinner performance - November 14th 2015
The original EVP tour was a major turning point in my work with performance, being able to tour the UK with really wonderful artists like Hannah Silva and Ross Sutherland, and with the support of Nathan Jones and Tom Chivers (www.stevenjfowler.com/evp) When the opportunity to do a one off commission for the same project, at Shoreditch Town Hall, I had a clear thought to what I might do, melding both my original work for the project with a tradition I've had for three years now, being painted as a skeleton on or around the Mexican Day of the Dead. I first did so in Mexico City and try to do so every year in homage to my friends in Mexico, and because much of my work is about the symbology of death.
For this performance I was really lucky to have the amazingly generous artist and make up artist Amalie Russell paint my face professionally. I had then spent a few days covering a whole banquet of food in black paint and lacquer, and my performance, a fluxus meal of sorts, was to set the table and invite diners to join me. I waited outside the fire exit of the venue on a typically vapid Shoreditch saturday night and felt it appropriate to wait in the rain. The performance was accompanied by a track made in collaboration with the remarkable musician Alexander Kell, who did an incredible job mixing my reading of Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo, one of the authors I had discovered in Mexico.
"Electronic Voice Phenomena returns with a series of electrifying live sessions featuring the very best in hauntology, spoken word, glitch noise and performance. The EVP Sessions takes its inspiration from Konstantin Raudive’s notorious Breakthrough experiments of the 1970s, in which he divined voices-from-beyond in electronic noise. Enter the labyrinthine basement of Shoreditch Town Hall and experience a “mind-boggling”, “perplexingly good” avant-garde cabaret of human, ghostly and machine voices. http://www.electronicvoicephenomena.net/index.php/shoreditch-town-hall-london/"
A note on: rehearsals for my play - Dagestan
An amazing experience working with actors Robin Berry, Gareth Tempest, Maya Wasowicz, Steve North and director Russell Bender, and of course producer Tom Chivers. Visit www.twitter.com/dagestanplay
A note on: Actors announced for my play Dagestan
ROBIN BERRY (CHAMBERLAIN)
Robin is a graduate of East 15 School of Acting. He has recently appeared in Silent Witness, New Tricks and Gigglebiz. He is a member of Andy Serkis’ Imaginarium company and is currently working on the new Jungle Book feature. His theatre credits include One Man Two Guvnors at the National Theatre and The Elephant Man (South East Asia tour).
GARETH TEMPEST (GLANTON)
Gareth is a graduate of the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. His theatre credits includeAdventures in Wonderland at the Vaults, Twelfth Night at the Riverfront Theatre, UK tours of Macbeth and The Comedy of Errors and It’s A family Affair- We’ll Settle It Ourselves at Sherman Cymru.
MAYA WASOWICZ (JESSICA)
Maya is a graduate of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Her theatre credits include Twelfth Night at the RSC, Design for Living at the Old Vic, Faith Machine at the Royal Court, The Thrill of Love at the St James’, and The Last of the de Mullins at the Jermyn Street. Her television credits include Mutual Friends, Wallander and Waking the Dead for the BBC. She has appeared in the films Huge and The Huntsman. Maya is producer for new theatre company Into the Wolf.
STEVE NORTH (HOLDEN)
Steve is an actor and filmmaker. He has played leading roles in theatre, television and film over the last twenty years. His screen credits include Closed Circuit, Mongrels,Doctor Who, EastEnders and EastEnders: E20, Is Harry on the Boat, The Day Britain Stopped, Midsomer Murders, Casualty, London’s Burning, Murphy’s Law, Holby City,Woof, South West Nine. Filmmaking credits include co-writing and appearing in the feature film South West 9 and he was Associate Producer The Football Factory. He co-wrote and produced the short film Through the K-Hole and directed the award winning short film Cregan for Screen South under the Digital Shorts scheme. His numerous theatre credits as an actor include War Horse in the West End, Shared Experience, Manchester Royal Exchange, Edinburgh Fringe First winning play Meeting Joe Strummerand a one man show west End run of Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch. He plays guitar and sings for London band The Clones.
Dagestan is presented in three scratch performances on 16 and 17 October at Rich Mix, London. Click here to book your ticket.
Upcoming: Dagestan, my first play, October 16th 17th at the Rich Mix
Penned in the Margins 2015 program
really pleased & proud to feature in this wonderful program for Penned in the Margins.
http://www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk/
index.php/2015/04/beyond-the-book-announcing-our-2015-programme/ my production is in October, visit the page and read the program to find out what it is! Wonderful company Im in too, with Hannah Silva's amazing show Schlock! and Ryan Van Winkle's new book the Good Dark
I'm in 3 books in the Penned in the Margins xmas sale!
GIVE SOMEONE YOU LOVE GREAT LITERATURE THIS CHRISTMAS
Give great literature to someone you love with 25% off all our books during the festive season.And watch out for our special Advent Calendar: half price on a different title every day till Christmas!*
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Oxford Brookes weekly poem feature - Gilles de Rais from Enemies
http://www.brookes.ac.uk/poetry-centre/weekly-poem/weekly-poem-for-20-october-2014/ Very nice to have two poems from my collaboration with David Erkembode Kelly pop up on the Oxford Brookes poetry weekly poetry feature.
Weekly Poem for 20 October 2014
Weekly Poem for 20 October 2014
Marginalia: an anthology for a decade of Penned in the Margins
Really happy to be featured in the Penned in the Margins ten year anniversary anthology. An amazing achievement for Tom Chivers and the team, and an organisation I'm very proud to have worked with so often. My collaboration with Sam Riviere, from Enemies http://www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk/index.php/2013/09/enemies-2/ features in the volume.
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
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
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
Mount London should be climbed
http://www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk/index.php/2014/03/mount-london/
Yessss very good window @LRBbookshop Mount London (& ducks) @PennedintheM pic.twitter.com/PvNtmZLtTe
— Steven J Fowler (@stevenjfowler) May 31, 2014
the Londonist - 12 publishers...
http://londonist.com/2014/05/twelve-independent-publishers-every-londoner-should-know.php
Eyewear
Eyewear is a relatively young London press, up and running for just two years, but in that time it has published many poetry collections. Simple colourful graphics illustrate the covers; the academic Dr Todd Swift picks the poets. Marion McCready’s Tree Language (out last April) has already gained plenty of praise, and Eyewear will also publish a book of SJ Fowler’s poetry later this year. Head to the London Review Bookshop to browse its titles.
Penned in the Margins
Like Strange Attractor, Penned in the Margins started by running events and performances before it began to publish poetry and experimental prose in 2006. Now it regularly publishes leading young names in poetry such as Ross Sutherland and Claire Trevien. Adventures In Form is its bestseller — a must for anyone interested in how texts and Twitter updates affected poetry. Its 90 poems experiment with traditional methods such as collage, as well as playing with new poetic forms. Visit Rough Trade East or nearby Brick Lane Books to see what’s in stock.
Mount London rises
Twenty-three London writers launch an ascent of the vertical city
Forget the skyscrapers: an invisible mountain is rising above the streets of the capital - and at over 1,800 metres, it is Britain's highest peak.
This ingenious new book is an account of the ascent of 'Mount London' by a team of writers, poets and urban cartographers, each scaling a lesser hill within the city - from Stamford Hill (36m) to Crystal Palace (112m). Ascents of natural peaks are offset by the search for 'ghost hills' in the back streets, a descent into the deepest part of the Tube, and expeditions to the city's artificial mountains - The Shard (306m), the chimneys of Battersea Power Station (103m).
Helen Mort (Division Street) goes cross-country running up Parliament Hill, Joe Dunthorne (Submarine) tackles Europe's tallest building as a metaphor for gentrification, and Justin Hopper (Old, Weird Albion) discovers Doctor Who at the summit of Horsenden Hill. Many of the expeditions in this book reveal mountainous follies, their rubble strewn across the city from Northala Fields to Stave Hill to the ruins of the Crystal Palace. Ghosts of the city emerge from the pages: John Bunyan; the Sydenham Hill Giant; Margaret Finch, Queen of the Gypsies. From the folly of man to reach ever higher, to the effort of the climb, Mount London explores not only the physical topography, but also the psychological experience of urban hill walking.
Mount London is the latest anthology from award-winning independent publisher Penned in the Margins. Conceived and edited by poet Tom Chivers and academic Martin Kratz, this pioneering collection brings together twenty-three contemporary writers to document navigations of the city through essays and stories that are humorous, enlightening and endlessly imaginative.
Launched on 28th May to coincide with the feast of St Bernard of Montjoux, the patron saint of mountaineers, this dynamic collection brings the dense terrain of the city ever closer, immersing the reader in the environments and folk histories that Londoners encounter every day. Mount London unpeels London's history and geography, reimagining the streets as mountainous terrain and exploring what it's like to move through the contemporary city.
Full list of authors
Matt D. Brown, Sarah Butler, Tom Chivers, Liz Cookman, David Cooper, Tim Cresswell, Alan Cunningham, Joe Dunthorne, Inua Ellams, Katy Evans-Bush, SJ Fowler, Bradley L. Garrett, Edmund Hardy, Justin Hopper, Martin Kratz, Amber Massie-Blomfield, Karen McCarthy Woolf, Helen Mort, Mary Paterson, Gareth E. Rees, Gemma Seltzer, Chrissy Williams, Tamar Yoseloff.
Mount London & Penned in the Margins in 2014
http://www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk/index.php/
2014/02/announcing-the-springsummer-2014-programme/ Very excited to be part of the 2014 Penned in the Margins program through an exciting anthology of new writing, a collection exploring the experimental essay form, about the hills of London. From Tom Chivers "Our publishing programme kicks off in May with Mount London, an anthology of essays that collectively attempts to ascend an imaginary mountain above the streets of the capital." My contribution is about Hampstead Heath and is a long awaited chance for me to further explore the ideas of consciousness and exhaustion in the written word. It's really about hill sprints, and the physiological meeting the phenomenological, and about conditioning, rather than exercise, as a lifestyle. Or something like that that isn't that. More to come on this project, and I sincerely recommend you get a copy of the Penned program to see the other great stuff they are producing with Caroline Bergvall, Chris McCabe and many brilliant others.
Penned in the Margins podcast: on poetry & performance
Really privileged to be invited to partake in a round table discussion on poetry and performance by Penned in the Margins, for their very first podcast. It was chaired by Tom Chivers and featured Hannah Silva and Sidd Bose. Quite an honour to be with them both, far greater than I in the performance realm. Certainly there was an interesting and proper difference in our approaches and general aesthetics. I was maybe a bit too harsh on spoken word, as I often am, I should be more mindful that the best of the medium is very good. It's just the case that the very average, or the very very poor, of the medium does parade as poetry, and userp it's resources, unfortunately. That tends to have me too trigger happy in smashing it. Anyway, a fine discussion, gentle and open, glad to be involved.
Penned in the Margins Xmas sale - Enemies in the Innovator package!
Christmas Bundle #1: The Innovator
I'm not just saying it because they published Enemies, but Penned in the Margins is clearly one of the most important poetry presses in the British Isles. The list speaks for itself (Wilkes, McCabe, Critchley, Kennard, Phillipson et al), always innovating upon their own mode. And now they're having a Christmas Sale - 20% off all books until the end of December. http://www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk/index.php/2013/12/great-deals-on-poetry-and-experimental-fiction-in-our-christmas-book-sale/ & add into this there are special bundle deals, the first of which, includes Enemies, so get out your 25 squid and improve your life.
Books for those with avant-garde tendencies. From Emily Critchley’s experimental confessionals to the minimalist lyrics of Rob Stanton, and from Alan Cunningham’s urban philosophy to SJ Fowler’s cross-artform collaborations, this is poetry and fiction that embraces fragmentation, collage and collaboration £25
the introduction to Enemies published by Penned in the Margins
http://www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk/index.php/2013/11/a-miniaturised-bulkwark-against-being-solitary-sj-fowler-introduces-enemies/
‘A miniaturised bulkwark against being solitary’: SJ Fowler introduces Enemies
Steven Fowler (right) with friends
We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and
friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we’re not alone.
- Orson Welles
First and foremost, this book is a record of friendships. It is a testament to my refusing to be alone in the creative act, as I would not want to be alone in the world, and to my decision to mediate sociality through the artistic impulse of other human beings, whose brilliance leaves me feeling more at home in that world. If my daily life is primarily defined by individuals who have decided to make their brief time on this planet one of creativity, ingenuity, intelligence and humour, and who have talents far surpassing my own, my experience of life can only be one that is defined by constant growth and learning and, hopefully, understanding — towards nothing more than more art unto expiry. Maybe even enough to temporarily blot out life’s adversarial character and essential purposelessness. Certainly it has worked recently, and that’s more than enough for me.
This is why the book exists as selected collaborations, whittled down from over 60 different exchanges I have been a part of over the last few years with writers, poets, artists, photographers, illustrators, designers, sculptors and filmmakers from across the world. The act of collaboration has become a defining turn in my practice, a constant affirmation of a way of writing as well as a way of communicating in real space, between human beings.
Enemies is a record of potentiality too, of what the aberrant and ambiguous use of language can be when responding, warping and enveloping another, equally abundant, artistic medium. It is my view that poetry lends itself to collaboration as language does conversation, and it is in poetry we are renovating the living space of communication, and this in itself is a collaborative act. The poet comes up against something other than themselves in the writing of every poem; and in the shaping of every fragment of language there is a response taking place. I hope this book showcases original, dynamic examples of what is produced when the other in question is the equally avid mind of another artist or writer.
Artwork from Enemies by photographer Alexander Kell
The motivation behind my taking on so many collaborations was initially a source of uncertainty for me. I’ve come to realise this reluctance (I began collaborating by invitation, the Voiceworksand Blue Touch Paper projects being early examples) is intensely important. It’s becoming clearer with time that I undertake so many collaborations precisely because, at heart, I believe less than many of my peers in the transformative power of poetry. That isn’t to say I believe poetry isn’t transformative at all — of course I do ascribe it such potential (to me personally, it is utterly and immensely transformative — but I refuse it the power to go beyond my own personal subjectivity. I refuse the idea that poetry is improving in and of itself. There is a tension here, maybe even a paradox. I have both feelings at once, that poetry is both nothing and everything. Yet I do believe, somehow and without articulation, in the Brodskyite notion of poetry being the most important artform because of its relationship to the profundity of language, because of its engagement with what fundamentally constitutes all other creativity and discussion. It is impossible for me to escape the feeling that this relationship is wholly individuated, and so at the very same moment — poetry is nothing, a game for the initiated, the distraction of a select. I suppose then that my poetry, and my collaborations, are about stripping away a glib assumption that poetry is profound, to get to the private meaning, which I do believe is utterly closed and personal though very much present. Here is the second paradox: by maintaining a creative practice often reliant on an other, and an act of exposure toward them, I am able to gain fresh and invaluable access to my own poetry and its process. Paulo Friere’s notion that communication builds community in the creative, organisational act which is the antagonistic opposite of manipulation, and a natural development of unity, ties into the idea that my collaborations might be founded on a central turn — a paradox of dismissiveness and legitimacy about the poetical act and the nature of poetry’s power. For me then, this book is a confusion as well as a testament, a symbol of community and accord, as well as a record I cannot fathom on rereading. And this is exactly how it seems to me it should be — lost in the margins.
If this book is held together by poetry, it is as a soft and tacky kind of glue – uhu – as good for eating as for adhesion
Artists who are powerful alone, and need not collaborate, seem to do so easily, uninterested in the protection of their inspiration. If this book is held together by poetry, it is as a soft and tacky kind of glue — uhu — as good for eating as for adhesion, barely keeping pace (which is its strength, I hope, that it acknowledges this in its very firmament) with the photography, art, illustration, musical composition and design of so many gifted others to be found within these pages. I have been told it is a book dense and mysterious, full of challenging material, and shifts in tone. It doesn’t seem so to me, nor did it feel so in its multifarious creation or compilation. But then perhaps that is because I hope that if my work stands for one thing, it is that experimentation and innovation is not a stance, but a pattern of behaviour, not a philosophy of theory, heavy with beneficial and smug associations of rebellion and kudos, but a specific reaction to a specific need or notion — a philosophy in action. How might I express what I wish to outside of atypical methods? This I do not know, interested as I am in the untameable and almost unknowable, and the dark edges of experience, emotion, civilisation and its history. Broken syntax, free verse, Oulipian codas, found text, unconscious writing, high conception &c.: these are what I deem the necessary tools and, as I hope will be clear throughout this volume, ones wholly symbiotic with the subject of each collaboration and the work of each collaborator.
Steven Fowler with Holly Pester in Mexico on the Day of the Dead
The twenty-nine works ahead of you are almost always excerpts from larger works. At the end of the book you will find a Notes section, which will shed some light on the content and process of each collaboration, and where you’d find them in their full length, if relevant. I want to thank all the collaborators who made it into the book, all those who didn’t, probably better off not being associated with me, and Tom Chivers, editor of Penned in the Margins, who does important work, selflessly and with immense professionalism. Special debts of gratitude to Jon Opie and Shonagh Manson at the Jerwood Charitable Foundation, who, alongside Arts Council England, have allowed the concept for this book to grow into a huge programme of events and undertakings involving over thirty happenings and two hundred artists and poets. And to David Kelly and Livia Dragomir, monsters who cannot be unmentioned.
Consider this meagre work in your hands a rather miniaturised bulwark against being solitary — a sandcastle before a tsunami, that might provide you with the smallest apertures of pleasant distraction. For my own part, if my work sits alongside, or inside, work of a quality such as I hope you will find beyond this page, it can only be elevated. The others who are my Enemies in art and in life, who make up my community, and who will not let me be complacent, are what this book means to me. I hope for you it might take on another meaning that I cannot possibly fathom from my privileged vantage.
SJ Fowler, September 2013
Enemies from Penned in the Margins
Really happy to say Enemies, my selected collaborations, from Penned in the Margins, is now available to order http://www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk/index.php/2013/09/enemies-2/
The book is 168 pages of collaborations with 29 different poets, artists, photographers, composers and includes full colour artworks and photographs amongst the text. I hope it stands as a unique document, of both my work and of the Enemies project in general, and I’m very proud to be associated with some of the most interesting and dynamic artists and writers working in their respective fields http://www.weareenemies.com/
The collaborators / works included, often excerpted from longer pieces, are:
Sian Williams – Animal Husbandry
Below is an excerpt from the book’s introduction:
“...Artists who are powerful alone, and need not collaborate, seem to do so easily, uninterested in the protection of their inspiration. If the book is held together by poetry, it is as a soft and tacky kind of glue – uhu - as good for eating as for adhesion, barely keeping pace (which is its strength, I hope, that it acknowledges this in its very firmament) with the photography, art, illustration, musical composition and design of so many gifted others to be found within these pages. I have had to be told it is a book dense and mysterious, full of challenging material, and shifts in tone. It doesn’t seem so to me, nor did it feel so in its multifarious creation or compilation. But then perhaps that is because I hope if my work stands for one thing, it is that experimentation and innovation is not a stance, but a pattern of behaviour, not a philosophy of theory, heavy with beneficial and smug associations of rebellion and kudos, but a specific reaction to a specific need or notion – a philosophy in action...”
& finally special debts of gratitude to Jon Opie and Shonagh Manson at the Jerwood Charitable Foundation, who, alongside Arts Council England support, have allowed the concept for this book to grow into a huge programme of events, as well as gratitude to all the collaborators who made it into the book, all those who didn’t, probably better off not being associated with me, and Tom Chivers, editor of Penned in the Margins who produced the immense object itself.
You are invited to the Launch of Enemies
ENEMIES: THE SELECTED COLLABORATIONS OF SJ FOWLER
Please pop along if you can. I'll be reading with Sam Riviere, David Berridge, Tim Atkins, Sarah Kelly, Eirikur Orn Norddahl and Tom Jenks. From the publisher:
"You are invited to join independent poetry publisher Penned in the Margins for the launch of SJ Fowler’s groundbreaking, multi-disciplinary collection Enemies; the result of collaborations with over thirty artists, photographers and writers – each imbued with the energy, innovation and generosity of spirit that has become Fowler’s calling card as a poet.
Meta-diary entries mingle with a partially redacted email exchange; texts slip and fragment, finding new contexts alongside paintings, diagrams and YouTube clips. Animalistic Rorschach blots and behind-the-scenes photographs from the Museum inspire a poetic that is dynamic but unstable: Fowler’s texts walk the high-wire between reason and madness, the individual and the collective, human and animal.
The Enemies are: Tim Atkins, David Berridge, Cristine Brache, Patrick Coyle, Emily Critchley, Lone Eriksen, Frédéric Forte, Tom Jenks, Samantha Johnson, Alexander Kell, David Kelly, Sarah Kelly, Anatol Knotek, Ilenia Madelaire, Chris McCabe, nick-e melville, Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl, Matteo X Patocchi, Claire Potter, Monika Rinck, Sam Riviere, Hannah Silva, Marcus Slease, Ross Sutherland, Ryan Van Winkle, Philip Venables, Sian Williams"
"An overwhelming assault. The geography is unnerving, almost familiar, then stinging in its estrangement.Intensity crackles. Tension teases. At what point does collision become collaboration? When do the bandages come off?"
Iain Sinclair