Published : STICKER POEMS

My new book, one I really am happy with. The press has done a brilliant job with it. 'Sticker Poems' from Trickhouse Press
£10.00 128pp, A5, full-colour. https://www.trickhousepress.com/product/-sticker-poems-by-sj-fowler/6?cs=true&cst=custom

From the publisher “Forget everything you thought you knew about stickers and everything you might have suspected about poems. From animals to Mexican wrestlers, football players to medieval knights, zombie apocalypse to motivational mantras, Garbage Pail kids to dinosaurs, Sticker Poems is no less than a snapshot of human cognition, narrated by Fowler’s idiosyncratic poetics. This book offers a bold new take on what poetry means, a playful shock treatment for arthritic literary convention, and the kind of crystalline insight which is usually reserved for the deranged. These poems will stick to you like gum to your hair. Strawberry gum.”

The book contains 99 sticker poems, full colour, on photographic as well as essays by myself and David Spittle. Every order includes two free stickers of sticker poems which you can stick to that which you  wish to stick to.

“Screw your courage to the sticking place! SJ Fowler has invented a new poetic form, and traced out all its kinks and convolutions in one deliriously weird book. Let your nail grow out a bit to really get under the corners of his language and prise them off the page and you’ll be rewarded. I found at least one of these adhesive little poems at the back of my knee after a particularly hard reading session and now it’s stuck. What is there in life but adhesion?” Colin Herd

A note on : Poem Brut in the City

the first live www.poembrut.com event in a long time, over 18 months, and the launch of my new book, sticker poems https://www.stevenjfowler.com/#/stickers/

I took people on a merry dance. I’ve spent a lot of time in the city of london, i explore it often, im interested in its history and so when i wanted to do a poem brut event, outdoors as we emerge out of lockdown, i thought it suited as a locale. 11 poets were given 11 locations but no one but they knew where the readings would be or in what order. so there was a sense of surprise, i hope, amidst the hot weather, hidden corners and general friendly ambiance. we began at bank and ended up at the thames, two hours later, a good few dozen of us. all the videos of the excellent performances are online here www.poembrut.com/city

A note on : Sticker Poems! available for pre-order

I am so excited for this. I have had so much joy making this book, the next in my visual poetry series, and over a year in development. It has been such a pleasure to work with Dan Power of Trickhouse Press on the project, which is 99 full colour, full bleed, complex collagic weird poems made of actual stickers and digi-text. Launched on June 10th, more soon on that, but available for pre-order now https://www.trickhousepress.com/product/-pre-order-sticker-poems-by-sj-fowler/6?cs=true&cst=custom

Forget everything you thought you knew about stickers and everything you might have suspected about poems. From animals to Mexican wrestlers, football players to medieval knights, zombie apocalypse to motivational mantras, Garbage Pail kids to dinosaurs, Sticker Poems is no less than a snapshot of human cognition, narrated by Fowler’s idiosyncratic poetics.

This book offers a bold new take on what poetry means, a playful shock treatment for arthritic literary convention, and the kind of crystalline insight which is usually reserved for the deranged. It contains 99 original and striking sticker poems, as well as essays by SJ Fowler and David Spittle.

“Screw your courage to the sticking place! SJ Fowler has invented a new poetic form, and traced out all its kinks and convolutions in one deliriously weird book. Let your nail grow out a bit to really get under the corners of his language and prise them off the page and you’ll be rewarded. I found at least one of these adhesive little poems at the back of my knee after a particularly hard reading session and now it’s stuck. What is there in life but adhesion?” - Colin Herd

Published : Virtual Oasis, an AI anthology from Trickhouse Press

Very good yes to have a poem in a new anthology from Trickhouse Press, edited by Dan Power, who are publishing my new visual poetry brut book Sticker Poems soon in 2021. The anthology is entitled VIRTUAL OASIS and “is a collaboration between human writers and AI artists, a dream shared between machines both fleshy and fibre-optic. This anthology contains 23 original poems responding to automatically generated images.” Some brilliant people within, such as James Knight, Matthew Haigh, Robin Boothroyd, Sam Riviere, and Vik Shirley. Buy one here https://www.trickhousepress.com/product/virtual-oasis-/5?cs=true&cst=custom

A note on : Atomised by Robin Boothroyd

A brilliant new book of minimalist poetry has been ejected into the world thanks to Dan Power’s Trickhouse press. I was lucky enough to blurb it, below, and the book can be snapped here https://www.trickhousepress.com/product/-atomised-by-robin-boothroyd/2?cs=true

“Hey listen poetry is about language first and it's more artificial than speaking even. So if a poetry is reduced down to its atoms, small clusters of letters, single words and their slight variations, misspellings, mishearings, well that's important literary work. And hey listen Robin Boothroyd is not only able to do this, which is hard, because the smaller poems get the more every single tiny gesture is exposed, but he has done it with a humour which suggests a great emotional intelligence as well as a linguistic, poetical, intellectual one. Atomised is a concentrated gem of a book. It's Brain Eno and a whole whale. It's froth and sore eros. You'd be lucky to see it slowly!”
- SJ Fowler