Updated: Hubbub & Poetry School webpages

Finally I've filled up two sections of my site with all the relevant info that does them justice. My current and ongoing residency with the Hubbub at Wellcome Collection www.stevenjfowler.com/hubbub and the last few years teaching for the wonderful Poetry School www.stevenjfowler.com/poetryschool

Both include videos, blogs and general writings about my residential / pedagogical processes

an interview with Will Barrett at Sabotage reviews - a turning point

I decided in this interview to be more direct about my aesthetic opinions than I had ever done before. Why that is so is extremely complex. All I will say is this is result of years of considered thought, many missteps, much doubt and a constant desire to pressure test my ideas. I have finally reached the point that I believe firmly in these notions and that I can stand by them, they have been mettled. Of course revisions will come, but this seems the truth, as far as my opinion goes.

I have received a remarkable volume of heartfelt messages of support from people after the interview, and to those people I am exceedingly grateful. And I am grateful to Will too, and to Sabotage. And to everyone who has disagreed, and who has done so acknowledging, as I hope I have, that people are more than poetry.

The interview runs over 5000 words, so I won't post it all. In fact just the first question. It can be found in full http://sabotagereviews.com/2015/03/10/its-all-one-enormous-blancmange-an-interview-with-s-j-fowler/ Please do check it out.


 

WB I think for this interview we should stick mostly to your collection The Rottweiler’s Guide to the Dog Owner, which came out last year on Eyewear. For anyone completely new to your work, and this book, what advice would you give them as readers? Let’s assume they’re not very familiar with 20th or 21st century poetry.

SJF Okay, so I’m going to hit you with a deluge. Do forgive me, please take it as me taking your questions seriously. The advice I can give is theoretical rather than contextual, in that if you have what is a traditional, or shall we say dominant, notion of what poetry is, my poetry won’t mean much to you.

There is a profound error made about what poetry is, that pre-dominates in the UK, and beyond, but definitely in the UK right now in 2015. Poetry is made of language, not of emotions. Its building blocks are letters and words and the often fractious relationships to the meanings we attribute to these materials. This is the starting point of any poem, any text. Moreover, the poem exists as a physical thing, first seen, then read. Its context and its appearance, has great power, alongside its meaning. Language is the material of conversation, and of thought (perhaps, somewhat), and poetry, unlike music, has to work within the material of its own consideration and concept. What I mean by this is that poetry uses the thing we use to conceive and express all things. Music, visual art, sculpture – they do not. That is, unfortunately, their advantage in our time.

Therefore, very simply, poetry is, to me, the thing we do that uses this language material for something other than conversation or declaration. How is it, then, that the majority of poetry, or what most people know poetry to be, is essentially a conversation with oneself? Most poetry is first person ‘I’, narrative, subjective, descriptive, anecdotal and sentimental. It enforces a singular, limited notion of self-hood (one authorial voice) and employs language for its everyday function. It conceives emotional expressiveness, or ‘insight’, as the last moment of poetry, the crowning moment. Whereas, in reality, it is the first moment – an adolescent urge to express one’s feeling, one’s emotions and experiences, directly, often quite literally. Assuming a myriad of things, perhaps worse of all, the assumption that is interesting to other people. It brooks no ambiguity of meaning in its content, and it mistakes realism, or descriptive narrative (with occasional adjective flourish or familiar metaphor) for reality. It emphasises the romantic notion that the poet has a god given gift, that they are inspired by a muse, an essentially theological aesthetics (the poet alone with their god). It is Calvinist, the lucky few are born chosen. Moreover is represents a bizarrely specific type of writing, one we have come to know as ‘poetic’, one that is of a very certain time, and world of language, and that is now, horrifically retrograde.

For me, poetry is about the human animal in wonderment about the very possibility of language at all. It should be about refracting and reflecting and mulching the endless and idiosyncratic world of language, its materials, its meaning and the expression of that which surround us all differently. The poet’s ‘gift’ is the skill, attention and uniqueness of this refraction. This then is a poetry that reflects our world. It is one that keeps pace. It allows for a poetry that takes in data, algorithms, the changing nature of speech, the changes in our very cognition due to technology and so on. It is a poetry that allows us to be the multiple people we are, from our varying moods, to our varying languages, to our feelings in and out, and at the edges of expression. It does not hoot the same horn for forty years. And it is a poetry where the meaning is not closed. The reader should complete a poem with their world of meaning and language and understanding. The poet confronts the material of all conception and displaces and displays it for others to understand.

This is probably reads as shrill, but it is not a myth. If the situation we have in poetry was applied to other artistic fields it would be as though painters in 2015 could really only be known for painting pastoral landscapes, or contemporary composers could only write melodies in order to gain widespread acclaim. Of course they could toil away in obscurity, trying to respond to the actual world around them and not the romantic tradition hundreds of years deep, but we’d call them ‘experimental’, and gently shift them to the margins. This first-person anecdotal mode of poetry is the absolutely dominant in prizes and festivals in the UK. The fact is, there are thousands of poets in this country and around the world that have reacted to the same stimulus as those in the art world, the developments of thought, and of life, in the post-war era. They are just not known. They certainly have not been lauded or recognised here.

This comes down to a few simple factors, and this is the best way to introduce my work, through its aspiration. Rich aesthetic experience, be it poetry, music, art – requires attention. It requires context, theory and concentration to engage with it, to appreciate it, to develop a taste for it. It requires investment. A Rothko takes time to understand, to reflect itself back onto you, to represent the majesty of the non-literal – the moods that escape description in conversational language. A Schoenberg piece requires multiple listens, to attune oneself to the layering, the brilliance that sits in between the complex sounds that lie outside of our ordinary ear. Why is a poem expected to offer gratification immediately? I am attracted to that which requires me to work toward understanding, and that requires me to grow in perception. How have we come to value reduction? To mistake a flowery speech or an anecdote broken into lines as a poem?

To my eyes, most poems are bad speeches, and this is where spoken word sits even further beyond what I take poetry to be. It is most often a speech, given in exhortation, performed in a contrived rhythm. It allows for no misunderstanding of meaning, brooks no ideological inquiry and tells its readers or listeners what they already know, and by and large agree with. It takes for granted that language has situated, static meanings and it mistakes speech without rigour for poetry, and couches this in affectation. If I asked what differentiates a dominant/traditional or spoken word poem from a sentimental anecdote or a banal political speech you could perhaps point to the former being in lines and the latter being a block of words. There is no difference, generally speaking, otherwise.

And before you think this is just aesthetic malingering, all of this is underpinned by a fundamental, ethical choice about how we see existence. When confronted with the unknowable, adversarial, immensity of life – just take mortality itself, that everything is permeated on our absolute certainty of aging towards expiry – you can either admit your limitations and be grateful for life itself, a life lived in confusion, or you can try and make up an answer to all, and pretend you have control. The traditional, dominant mode of poetry is founded upon the notion that the poet can control language to represent the profound experiences of life. In so doing they employ means which are less than the things they wish to represent. In anecdotes, observation and conversation, and with sentiment, they reduce the world onto their pages. They transfuse life. Faced with overwhelming complexity, the response is assuredness. This is disingenuous at best, ignorant at worst. The contemporary, or what is called experimental poet, is making what is immensely complex in existence equally complex in language. This is what my work is about.

 

1000 Proverbs

The Liverpool Camarade event on Feb 18th 2015 will also serve as the launch for my new collaborative publication, 1000 Proverbs, written with the brilliant Tom Jenks and published by Knives Forks & Spoons press. I've been excited about this for a very long time. Tom and I have read from the work on multiple occasions and every time people seem to enjoy it. It is because he is talented and funny.

Soon the book will be available here: http://www.knivesforksandspoonspress.co.uk/

& you can see some of the many times Tom & I have shared our proverbial wisdom over the last few years here:

The cover is by the artist Theo Kaccoufa.

Liverpool Camarade - February 18th 2015

I’m happy to announce that on February 18th the Enemies project will travel to Liverpool for a special Camarade event featuring 16 poets. Some of the northwest’s most exciting vanguardists will present brand new collaborations in pairs, written for the night. The event is being co-curated by the Wolf magazine.

Details below, entrance is free but please book using this link:
http://www.eventbrite.com/e/liverpool-camarade-tickets-15406896442

 

 

7.30pm, Wednesday 18th February
Upstairs at the Fly in the Loaf. 13 Hardman Street, Liverpool, Merseyside L1 9AS

Tom Jenks & SJ Fowler
Robert Sheppard & The European Union of Imaginary Authors
Scott Thurston & Steve Boyland
James Byrne & Sandeep Parmar
Patricia Farrell & Joanne Ashcroft
Steve Van Hagen & Michael Egan
Lindsey Holland & Andrew Oldham
Elio Lomas & Luke Thurogood

Please come along to support another Enemies project foray outside of London.

Samurai: a collaboration with Andy Spragg on Cordite

I'm really excited to be writing an extended work with Andy Spragg. He's one of the most underrated contemporary British poets in my opinion, his work full of rapidity and intensity and complexity. Much to his credit, as is his prolificism. We are writing a book about lordless Samurai, Ronin, or something like that that isn't that 
http://cordite.org.au/poetry/collaboration/samurai/

Miyata encounters the 15 vexations
1. the persistence of the stain after the fact
2. abandoned in the face of an undefined duty
3. loosed footing amongst the chatter.
4. Presently, the earth offers no cloistered respite,

Vanguard: a course for the Poetry School

I’m really pleased to announce a new course I’ll be teaching for the Poetry School during their upcoming Autumn term - Vanguard http://www.poetryschool.com/courses-workshops/face-to-face/vanguard.php The course will be held on Thursday evenings at the Poetry School, in Lambeth, London. Here’s the info:
 
“Explore the expansive modern tradition of British experimental poetry, as SJ Fowler presents a necessarily idiosyncratic insight into the vibrant innovative poetries which have sought originality in the UK over the last 50 years.
 
Five bi-weekly sessions will explore the distinctive qualities of the British avant garde and chart a course through an enormous field of writing. Not formed by generation, region or faction, Vanguard explores characteristics that are possessed by, but in no way encompass, the work of many great British poets. These are qualities, and poets, chosen through the acknowledged limits of Steven's knowledge and interests, & representative of that alone.
Week 1 : October 23rd : Rapidity
Exploring immediacy, alertness; quickness; celerity, concision. Scalpel cuts at smugness / pomposity, seeking the fragmentary whole.
Drawing from the work of Tom Raworth, Maggie O'Sullivan, Denise Riley, Barry MacSweeney, Andy Spragg, Frances Kruk & others
Week 2 : November 6th : Proximity
Nearness in place, time, order, occurrence, or relation. Imbued with situation / location / historicity.
Drawing from the work of Iain Sinclair, Bill Griffiths, Geraldine Monk, Lee Harwood, Carol Watts, Roy Fisher & others
Week 3 : November 20th : Sonority
Excavations in sound, the condition of being resonant, multi & non lingual / vocal. Performativities. Technologies.
Drawing from the work of Caroline Bergvall, Bob Cobbing, Phil Minton, Hannah Silva, James Wilkes, Zoe Skoulding & others.
Week 4 : December 4th : JocosityUmour. Disjunction, juxtaposition, reappropriation - deftness, humour as disturbance, sublimation. Humour as a liferaft.
Drawing from the work of Tim Atkins, Holly Pester, Jeff Hilson, Philip Terry, Robert Sheppard, Tom Jenks & others.
Week 5 : December 18th : Destability
Undermining the oppressive in language / politics, situating complicity, interrogation / rejection of subjectivity. Externality and the refraction of worlds of language as a mode.
Drawing from the work of Veronica Forrest-Thomson, JH Prynne, Allen Fisher, Sean Bonney, Emily Critchley, Keston Sutherland & others.
During the course the onus will be on how these qualities in modern British poetry can enrich writing practise, rather than dense historical analysis, and how experimentation emerges from necessary innovations that are required for a poet to be truly contemporary in a rapidly changing society. Vanguard is a chance for students to diversify from singular, retrograde modes of writing and provides an all too rare insight into a world of poetry that is a profound part of our literary culture and heritage.”
 
I will organise a post-course reading for students on this course, and they will have the opportunity to attend a series of experimental poetry events during its duration, including Camaradefest II, to be held at the Rich Mix Arts Centre on Saturday October 25th, which will feature 100 poets in 50 pairs presenting 50 brand new collaborative works in one day.
 
Vanguard follows on from my Maintenant course http://www.poetryschool.com/courses-workshops/face-to-face/maintenant.php which explored post-war European avant garde poetry, which I’m happy to say was a grand success, due almost entirely to extraordinary group of students, who can be seen reading original work they collaborated to write during the course here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07uFwjvBHNg
 
As part of next year’s Poetry School Spring term I’m delighted that Maintenant will happen again, in its entirety, but as an interactive program of teaching this time, so anyone can join in, even if they live outside of London. You can read more about that course by clicking the link above and reading this interview, with Sarah Dawson http://campus.poetryschool.com/maintenant-interview-s-j-fowler/ More news on that next year.
 

Exhibiting w/ Anatol Knotek at the Text Festival, Bury

www.textfestival.com A unique and admirable fusion of exhibitions and events, celebrating text based art and vanguard poetry, the Text festival is a beacon that lights up Bury, and has done quite a few times over the last decade, drawing in some of the most interesting writers/artists in the world. I'm happy to say, for the Dark Would exhibition, edited and curated by Philip Davenport, the amazing Anatol Knotek, my long term collaborator, has produced beautiful visual poetry work based on our collaborative exchanges for the Dark Would anthology ebook, the interviews in fact, that we provided for the digital version. You can see a few pictures, taken by Philip, of the work below. 

The Text Festival in Bury is an internationally recognised event investigating contemporary language art (poetry, text art, sound and media text, live art). Opening on 2 May 2014, the next Festival will be its fourth manifestation and run into July 2014.

Celebrating Bill Griffiths

Without doubt, Bill Griffiths is one of the most powerful, impactful and deeply underappreciated poets of the post war era in England. It was an honour to put together the reading that celebrated the second volume of his collected poems, edited by Alan Halsey and published by Reality street. The turnout was lovely, and the readings excellent, some coming from living legends of the avant garde, the friends and peers of Bill, like Alan, Geraldine Monk, Allen Fisher and Harry Gilonis. It's extremely important to me to try and connect the lineage of my writing, and the culture of 21st century British vanguard poetry, to those figures of the recent past and present who have already walked that path that I am somehow, often accidentally, blindly stumbling down. Clearly the prolific and dynamic use of language, and the subject led, innately innovative poetry that Bill Griffiths produced is something I am often aping, and hoping to come close to achieving. He died just before I came onto the scene, in fact the launch of the 1st volume of his collected poems was the first reading i attended in London. Read more 

the Launch of Bill Griffiths collected poems 2 at Goodenough college

Announcing launch of Bill Griffiths' Collected Poems  (Vol 2)
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Launch of Bill Griffiths Collected Poems Vol 2


Reality Street published Bill Griffiths’ Collected Earlier Poems (1966-80) in 2010. Extending the account through the following decade, a new volume, Collected Poems & Sequences (1981-91), once again edited by Alan Halsey, collects poems and sequences from a prolific period in Bill's life that originally appeared in very small editions. The 426-page volume, publication of which was enabled by subscriptions from 120 supporters, also includes a section of uncollected or previously unpublished poems. The editor provides bibliographical and textual notes.
The book will be launched on Saturday 1st March at Goodenough College, Mecklenburgh Square, London WC1N 2AB. Selections from Bill's work will be read by poets Ken Edwards, Allen Fisher, Harry Gilonis, Alan Halsey, Mendoza, Geraldine Monk and Robert Sheppard. Copies of both Collected Poems & Sequences (1981-91) and Collected Earlier Poems (1966-80) will be on sale at a reduced price. The event starts at 7.00pm, readings at 7.30.

If you would like to come to the launch please reply to this message or email info@realitystreet.co.uk. The event is free, but you need to book your place in advance.

If you would like to review the new book, please use the same email address to request a review copy, or call 01424 431271.

For fuller information about the book, PLEASE CLICK HERE.

Thanks are due to Steven Fowler and the Enemies project for supporting the launch.

Collected Poems & Sequences (1981-91)
2014, 978-1-874400-65-3,  426pp, price £19 £15 at launch

 

Bill Griffiths
Bill Griffiths was a poet, Anglo-Saxon scholar, book designer, small press publisher, biker, pianist, archivist and social historian. 

His poetry came to prominence in the early 1970s, when he was associated with the small press poetry movement in London.

Later in his career he moved from London to North East England where he reinvigorated the study of the region’s dialect. He died in 2007 at the age of 59.

photo: Robert Cassel

Maintenant! a course for the Poetry School

I'm delighted to announce that in 2014 I will be teaching a course for the Poetry School http://www.poetryschool.com called Maintenant! exploring post-war & contemporary European avant-garde poetry.

It's a bi-weekly course, five lessons over ten weeks, aiming to elucidate traditions that might be occluded in the UK, and explore how their innovations in writing can compliment people's poetry in the now. The onus is on how these great moments in modern poetry can enrich writing practise, rather than dense historical analysis. It’s a rare chance to excavate avant garde work in such a setting, please sign up below if interested & in London.

The course will take place at the Poetry School London office, 79-83 Lambeth Walk. 2 hour lessons – 6.45pm to 8.45pm

Week One: January tuesday 28th – Oulipo
Georges Perec, Jacques Roubeau, Raymond Queneau up to Frederic Forte and British Oulippeans like Philip Terry. The constraints that emancipate.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oulipo

Week Two: February tuesday 11th – Austrian postwar modernism
Thomas Bernhard, Peter Handke, Elfriede Jelinek. How to deal with the legacy of Fascism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Handke

Week Three: February tuesday 25th - Concrete poetry
Hansjörg Mayer, Bob Cobbing, The Vienna Group, Oyvind Fahlstrom, Marton Koppany up to Anatol Knotek. The visuality of the poem as its meaninghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete_poetry

Week Four: tuesday March 11th - CoBrA
Asger Jorn, Christian Dotremont, Pierre Alechinsky. Dutch, Danish, Belgian & beyond, poetry as art revolt & primitivism.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COBRA_(avant-garde_movement)

Week Five: March tuesday 25th - British Poetry Revival
Tom Raworth, Bill Griffiths, Maggie O’Sullivan & many many more. Those every British poet should know, our immense late 20th century Vanguard heritage.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_poetry_revival

& near the end of the course, on March 15th 2014, at the Rich Mix arts centre, the students will get a chance to read some of the work they've produced during Enemies: Fjender, which explores contemporary Danish avant garde poetry in collaboration, with Cia Rinne, Martin Glaz Serup and Morten Sondergaard, who will also be exhibiting his remarkable Wordpharmacy http://www.wordpharmacy.com

You can download the entire Poetry School London programme here: http://www.poetryschool.com/resources/ps-brochurespring14-printerfriendly-3.pdf

& here is the interview series that inspired the course http://www.maintenant.co.uk/ all 97 editions so far.