One of the best things
I’ve done, getting poetry to travel me. I try and only do things that somehow
lead to a generative experience that somehow lead to some ambiguous feeling of
fulfilment that equates to being happy and positive towards other human beings
in the face of the obvious arbitrary coldness and fragility of being alive etc… To be flown,
housed, fed and exposed to an amazing city, generous people and wholly
authentic expressions of living in language all because Ive written some stuff
down is absurd enough to render ridiculous the notion that I might not be
buoyed by the experience and I was and am. The beginning of many new things and
a multitude of experiences that only leave me better.
So much to admire about
the way the festival was run and the poets who attended, and those involved in
the program. The festival has been
running for over a decade, and really has established itself through the work
of Martin Solotruk, Peter Sulej and others, as a space in which generations mix
as much as styles of poetry. All too rare a thing, to see formal poetry readings
in translations sitting alongside experimental poetics, electronic poetics and
collaborative practise. For me personally, with my desire to see the same
breadth and difference in poetry events, to actualise a variance and a
pluralism in organisation, it was especially gratifying. Moreover, there was a
indelible sense of being part of the city somehow, that the content of the
festival was fused directly to the happenings of Bratislava. The support staff
with the festival were really energetic and generous, and the venue for the
readings was the perfect balance of size and grime.
DAY ONE: arrived, looked
after, sent to the floating hotel, the Botel, on the Danube, with Mariano
Peyrou, a Spanish poet who I’ve known about for years but never met. Really a
great person to begin the thing with, as he’s unpretentious, honest and clever.
I need to visit Madrid, sounds like an immense amount happening there. Shown to
the restaurant where we can get free meals all week. Beerhall northern European
meatcheesedumplingbrown. I’dve ballooned into a full chunk if I ate there all the
days, so I didn’t. Meeting all the poets, from as far as India, I’m the only
Britisher, thanks fuck.
First night reading, I’m 3rd
on the 1st night. Before me, two young Bulgarian poets, Nevena
Borisov and Ivan Landzhev, who would genuinely become friends over the days.
Really kind, generous, warm hearted and erudite people, and really good to
discover so many poets in their 20s here. My reading was fun, felt very
relaxed, took some snaps of the audience while the Slovakian translations of my
poems were read by Lubo Bakovy, who covered the
actor-who-reads-translations-at-poetry-festival ground without melodrama, which
normally makes me retch a fair bit. Lubo was ice blood, suited me well. I read
some poems from my book out next year, Rottweiler’s guide to the Dog Owner, as
it’s a little more palatable for translation. People seemed happy enough, so I
was too. Got to witness Mariano give a typically honest reading, and Helena
Sinervo too, from Finland, and Prafull Shiledar, all the way from Mumbai. He is
a banker in India, but he seemed nice all the same (!). After the vanilla
readings were done there was a space every night for new commissions in innovative
poetics. This was the highlight for me, as a viewer, and Zuzana Husarova’s
collaboration with video, sound, dance artists, a five piece ensemble, really
blew me away. It is so hard to make two mediums sink in together, to pretty
much pull it off flawless across four is amazing. I wish I spoke fucking
Slovakian. I’ll definitely work with Zuzana and her chocolate cookie in the
future I reckon.
DAY TWO: Took a tram out
into the suburbs of Bratislava and then walked back in. Pretty repetitive, but
the parks were really peaceful and full of modernist sculpture. Lots of sexshops
and coffee shops. Loads of them in fact, a few each road. Had two lovely
meetings, one with the dynamic people from LitCentrum, that pushes Slovak
literature abroad. Took me ages to find their office, it was actually in what
equated to a literature museum and I felt an intense sense of déjà vu when
standing on that road, not realising til I was up in their office that that was
where I stayed the last time I visited Bratislava, sleeping in my friends car
as we drove across Europe. Two nights sleeping in the front seat. A bit
different for this visit. Then I met the brilliant poet Maria Ferencuhova, who
I had over for Camarade last year and wrote with Frances Kruk.
The readings were again
quite memorable. Robert Rybek, a Polish poet, front kicked the mic off its
stand before cursing out the audience and really digging into some weight.
Really breathtaking, it was completely genuine, completely authentic. Kato
Djavakhashvili read, all the way from Tbilisi, Tozan Alkan from Istanbul,
Gerhard Falkner from Berlin and then the electronic poetry performances – Jorg
Piringer was a force of nature with his visual concrete animation soundwork,
and Heike Fiedler, a revelation from Switzerland, mixing languages and
improvising with great aplomb.
DAY THREE: I upped early
again and walked an hour or two down the Danube before cutting in to the
outskirts to visit the Botanical gardens, and then one of the best fucking Zoos
Ive ever visited. I got quite emotional meeting the bear. I got to touch a
fucking baby meerkat. There was a white tiger and a red panda. The whole thing
was mental. And they had a dinopark was animatronic dinosaurs that could only
move one appendage. Must have cost a bomb. So weird it was one of the happiest
mornings I can remember, pumped on coffee, music in, animals right in my fat
face.
I hiked over the hills
back into the city and had a really lovely lunch with Louis Armand. Whatever I
aspire to do in London, Louis has done it in Prague, having lived there over 20
years, originally from Sydney. He’s published a boatload of novels and is the
man behind the microfestival, VLAK, Equus and all that amazing stuff that
wouldn’t exist with innovative poetics in Czechland, along with David Vichnar.
Really good to shoot breeze with him, finally, after being an associate editor
of VLAK for awhile.
Final night of readings,
quite a male lineup, chest puff. But Ville Hytonen! Ive wanted to meet Ville
for ages, hearing of his great work through Pekko Kappi, one of the best
performers Ive worked with on my events. Great to hear his brogue, Anselm Hollo
resurrected quickly. Ville is in Talinn now, Im definitely going to visit him
next summer, and probably write with him too. Daniel Cundari was amazing too, a
dapper gent from Calabria, living in Granada, he really upped the emotion with
some severe youthful panache. Jason Mashak, an American living in the Czech
Republic was great too, such a decent bloke, very humble, and his work was
graceful and funny. And Louis read, growling out some jazz work that
capitivated. After the break Erik Simsik, who seems to be right on the front of
the younger avant garde in Slovakia and then Olga Pekova, who created a
beautiful, vulnerable / inverted penetrative moment to end the fest with,
collaborating with nudity and a boxharp.
On the last night, and
across the whole fest, the sociality, arguably the most important subjective
factor of any meet, which I actively select or deselect, being as it is often
laden with nervousness and alcohol, was wholly generous – friendly, but not
overbearing, dedicated to the readings and arts performances, but always
personal and conversational. Often very funny too. People had a sense
of humour heavy with dark corners. A rare thing for me to stay out late night
after night from desire, dry as a bone, increasingly comfortable in lighting
everyone up. Slovak poets and artists, on the whole, seem not to regard
themselves haughtily, they seem hungry and dynamic, but unpretentious, and the
visiting poets too, definitely diamoned the talking without being at all self
regarding.. The locals are really interested in work from outside Slovakia but remain
in touch with their own authenticity. This is perhaps the word I would best use
to describe the people and the majority of the work at the festival, and the
atmosphere. There was little pretence, it was uniformly friendly. They also all
speak English and I was able to get away with my monogloticism, though
frequently apologising to people who speak five languages plus.
It is not always the case
that thirty or so poets, dropped into a city together, will gel. I often think
the immaterial nature of our creative connection is overstated in terms of
predicting how people get on, its just about whether people are kind and humble
or not. For an undertaking this size, the connections made between the poets
were really inspirational. I had so many generative conversations with those
attending and discovered so much new work from across Europe and even beyond. I
feel like some relationships were the first step into friendships /
collaborations / correspondences that might span my life, and so if poetry is
the vehicle of that, all the better, as long as it happens on and again. Im
fortunate to have gone, to have been exposed to what I was and will remember
Bratislava all lit up by the best circumstances I could imagine.
