A note on : an interview with David Spittle

oo i don’t half go on… the person encouraging me here, a friend and peer, david spittle, an expert no less in cinema and poetry, interviewed me for the specific purpose of helping me share context and knowledge on my new book COME AND SEE THE SONGS OF STRANGE DAYS : POEMS ON FILMS www.stevenjfowler.com/comeandsee

however we talked not just on that but on many things, and my history of publishing particularly, drawing back to my book fights, from ten long years ago. if you’ve a spare hour, well parts may entertain

A note on: launching Come and See the Songs of Strange Days...

Needs must and to launch a book in the times of the lockdown one must digital. The monthly broken sleep online readings, hosted by press editor aaron kent, was a fine place to share some of my poems on films in order to launch my new collection which can be snaffled up here https://www.brokensleepbooks.com/product-page/sj-fowler-come-and-see-the-songs-of-strange-days

I like to perform but i think what is entertaining in person can be smug down the camera hole lens. Not that smugness is often avoided with me goings on, but it seemed fairy lights did the right trick and people seemed to enjoy. Judge for yourself

Published : Come and See the Songs of Strange Days - Poems on Films

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My 9th collection is released today from Broken Sleep Books. They have done a grand job creating a beautiful book with an especially ambitious text, as it brings literary poetry together with visual, photographic, asemic, sound, conceptual poetries. Each poem is on a film. The book is purchaseable at https://www.brokensleepbooks.com/product-page/sj-fowler-come-and-see-the-songs-of-strange-days
and much more on it at www.stevenjfowler.com/comeandsee

From the publisher "To say that SJ Fowler’s Come and See the Songs of Strange Days is a poetic encyclopaedia of film would be right but falls short of describing its true nature. From an authorship marked by poetic skill and genius insanity, this book covers a range of avantgarde methodology without parallel in the British literary tradition. At times aberrant, at times playful, it overlaps cinema and language, combining lyricism with abstract visual commentary, and thriving on that which defies description. The films include American blockbusters and European arthouse, obscure documentary and all-time classics. It is a book that offers much, whether or not you like film, and whether or not you like poetry."

Poems from the book can be found at the following journals, if you're the kind that likes to sample before buying:

'I love the conceit of the project; the meandering and collagic mindscape, induced by the various prose and textual formats, encourages a desire to keep on reading. Here lies an unfathomable interconnectivity, parts always competing for a place in some unfinished scene.' - Andrew Kötting

Published : 3 cinema poems on m58

Taken from my new book COME AND SEE THE SONGS OF STRANGE DAYS : POEMS ON FILMS, available for pre-order https://brokensleepbooks.com/product-page/sj-fowler-come-and-see-the-songs-of-strange-days… 3 new poems up on Andrew Taylor's brilliant M58 - You The Living, The Abyss, Ordet https://m58.co.uk

I’m especially happy with the Abyss poem, made from collaged screen shots from the director’s cut of the film and You, the Living, using screenshots from the film itself, with the subtitle repurposed as poetry.

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A note on : Broken Sleep launch event

I will be doing a physical launch when possible in April, May, June, but for now Broken Sleep have set up a digital launch event series and happily I shall be reading from my book COME AND SEE THE SONGS OF STRANGE DAYS : POEMS ON FILMS on March wednesday 31st at 7.30pm, with the link here https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/copy-of-broken-sleep-books-march-launch-tickets-143689443995

Published : Light Glyphs by David Spittle

Really happy to be one of 10 respondents in a new book of interviews conducted by David Spittle and published by Broken Sleep books, entitled Light Glyphs https://www.brokensleepbooks.com/product-page/david-spittle-light-glyphs

“Light Glyphs is a series of interviews with filmmakers on poetry, and poets on film. Featuring interviewees such as John Ashbery, Iain Sinclair, Lisa Samuels, and Guy Maddin, this intriguing set of interviews delves into the connections and shared interests of creatives behind the camera, and holding the pen. Light Glyphs seeks to explore 'ways of thinking, writing and seeing opened to new and changing possibilities [...] or in where the light escapes and how it obscures, in what is missing from the frame or smudging the lens.' I’ve been reading and following this series for years, David is a brilliant poet and am really pleased to be in such company. Our chat covered my film The Animal Drums amongst others thing.

Published : 3 new poems on films on Berfrois

Representing the multi methodological poetry of my new collection COME AND SEE THE SONGS OF STRANGE DAYS (available for pre-order https://www.brokensleepbooks.com/product-page/sj-fowler-come-and-see-the-songs-of-strange-days) I’m happy to say 3 unpublished poems have been shared by Berfrois, thanks to editor Callie Michail

DOGTOOTH, MARGIN CALL, GUMMO https://www.berfrois.com/2021/02/margin-call-gummo-and-dogtooth-by-sj-fowler

A note on : Come and See the Songs of Strange Days - pre order

Magic my new book COME AND SEE THE SONGS OF STRANGE DAYS : POEMS ON FILMS due next month with Broken Sleep Books is now available for pre-order. The link features 2 poems from the book (Paul Schrader’s Mishima and Roy Andersson’s Songs from the Second Floor, featured here +) https://brokensleepbooks.com/product-page/sj-fowler-come-and-see-the-songs-of-strange-days

'I love the conceit of the project; the meandering and collagic mindscape, induced by the various prose and textual formats, encourages a desire to keep on reading. Here lies an unfathomable interconnectivity, parts always competing for a place in some unfinished scene.' Andrew Kötting

Published : Man Bites Dog on Eurolitkrant

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Very generous of Ghareeb Iskander to take a new poem of mine for publication in the Belgium based journal Eurolitkrant. https://eurolitkrant.com/OneBook.aspx?Id=81

The journal has featured some great European poets recently - Peter Zavada, Ida Borjel, George Szirtes, Kornelia Deres - and I’m particularly happy to have this poem up as it’s taken from my new collection, which is due March 2021, in two months time. It is entitled COME AND SEE THE SONGS OF STRANGE DAYS poems on films with Broken Sleep.

The film the poem is about is an intense one, but also from Belgium, so some synchonicity jiggling.

A note on : Broken Sleep list for 2021

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I am happy to be one of the poets on the list for Broken Sleep in 2021, alongside some friends - Lucy Harvest Clarke, Luke Kennard, Emma Hammond, Jon Stone - and a lot of new names to me. Which is excellent.

The book I’ll be releasing in March 2021 is the second, far longer, instalment of my cinema poems. I’ve been working on them bit by bit for years. The first pamphlet I did with BS did really well and was a joy to put together, I STAND ALONE BY THE DEVILS, it was called.

This will be a full collection and more ambitious in terms of methodology too. Aliens is a film about more than one Alien, for example.

What Aaron Kent and his team have done with Broken Sleep is very impressive too, the press is growing exponentially. https://www.brokensleepbooks.com/

Published : I Stand Alone by The Devils, and other poems on films

I Stand Alone by The Devils, and other poems on films
Broken Sleep Books : 33 pages : £5 www.stevenjfowler.com/istandalone
www.brokensleepbooks.com/product-page/sj-fowler-i-stand-alone-by-the-devils-and-other-poems-on-films

A book, though lean, I have been working on for years. It’s been a pleasure to bring it into life with Aaron Kent, editor of Broken Sleep. From the publisher = "26 new poems celebrating 26 cult films of the 20th and 21st century, I Stand Alone by The Devils is a slim volume of cinematic poetic ekphrasis. At play is an aberrant intersemiotic translation between the mediums of popular or arthouse cinema and contemporary, modernist poetry. The poems aim to re-imagine moving image in language, often cutting in tone, taking on the dark, symbolic and sardonic on film. Each poem is a single film, interpreting, reflecting, embodying and transposing, exploring both films familiar to many, and digging out, often from 20th century European cinema, more unorthodox motion pictures. From Querelle and The Baby of Mâcon, to American Werewolf in London and Don’t Look Now. From Aguirre and Festen to The Fly and Breaking the Waves, these poems are a strange and playful musing on cinema’s impact on poetry and language and a useless thinking through of how films are actually consumed."

A full list of films featured - Angel Heart, Querelle, Last Year at Marienbad, Ali : Fear Eats The Soul, The Fly, The Devils, Breaking the Waves, American Werewolf in London, Don’t Look Now, I Stand Alone, A short film about Love, En Coeur En Hiver, The Baby of Mâcon, Nightwatch (Nattevagten), Silence of the Lambs, Satan’s Brew, Aguirre, wrath of god, The Long Good Friday, Stalker, Salo, Festen, Three Colours Blue, Yojimbo, Possession, Beau Travail, M.

LAUNCH : August Thursday 29th 2019 at the Cinema Museum, London, alongside a screening of Peter Greenaway’s The Baby of Mâcon
http://www.cinemamuseum.org.uk/
7pm doors for 7.30pm entry. £8 (£5 concessions)
Readings, featuring Jonathan Catherall, Yvonne Litschel, Chris Kerr, David Spittle and more, alongside SJ Fowler, will mark this unique celebration of cinematic poetry, before a screening ofThe Baby of Mâcon, Peter Greenaway’s remarkable and challening 1993 film. More details to come soon.