Editorial

I have been poetry editor at 3am magazine since the summer of 2011.

The ambitious Maintenant Series featured 101 interviews with 21st century European poets on 3am and Poetry International.

The Poem Brut series has brought together over 100 works of hand-made visual art-literature, published online.

I was executive editor for the Versopolis Review 2018 to 2020, commissioning articles from writers across the world.

I have edited groundbreaking series of student publications for Kingston University and a series of new translations for the European Poetry Festival, both in partnership with Sampson Low.

I have edited multiple anthologies, most notably EUROPOE, Enemigos, Illuminations and Kakania.

Published : EUROPOE - an anthology of European poetry April 30, 2019

EUROPOE Groundbreaking poetry by sixty of Europe’s most original poets, translated into English, brought together for one remarkable anthology.
Kingston University Press (May 2019) Available to buy here enemiesproject.bigcartel.com/product/europoe 143 pages. Paperback.

This was a labour of love. Perhaps the word labour might flash red here. It has been designed to be connected to the European poetry festival I run and to be fundamentally ephemeral, as I’m not really into being an anthologist, as I believe it’s a vocation, a real commitment (see Jerome Rothenberg) and I don’t have that in me at all. In this case I choose the poets from my own tastes and contacts, so they are (obviously not, but in a deeper way) not representative of anything but that and I asked each poet to negotiate their own choice of poems / translations / translators / languages / methods / appearances with me. I hope the book proves exciting to those who read it, that’s all I’m after. https://www.europeanpoetryfestival.com/europoe

“Celebrating the grand resurgence in literary and avant-garde poetry that has marked the 21st century in Europe, poets from over forty nations present works developing the lyric, sonic, visual, abstract and conceptual traditions. A volume that seeks not to offer a taxonomy but a brief glimpse of the brilliance of so many poets working at the forefront of the language arts, this is a book unified by a fidelity to that which is truly contemporary, amorphously continental and generously innovative.

Featuring poems by Pierre Alferi, Tomica Bajsić Aase Berg, Volodymyr Bilyk, Cecilie Bjørgås Jordheim, Ida Börjel, Serena Braida, Kristian Carlsson, Sophie Carolin-Wagner, Theodoros Chiotis, Iris Colomb, Efe Duyan, Federico Federici, Orsolya Fenyvesi, Mária Ferenčuhová, Frédéric Forte, Lies Van Gasse, Pavlo Grazhdanskij, Ana Gorria, João Luís Barreto Guimarães, Max Höfler, Niillas Holmberg, Zuzana Husarova, Maja Jantar, Ragnhildur Jóhanns, Aušra Kaziliūnaitė, Frank Keizer, Anatol Knotek, Amadej Kraljevič, Gabrielė Labanauskaitė, Morten Langeland, Luljeta Lleshanaku, Léonce W. Lupette, Christodoulos Makris, Maria Malinskovskaya, Ricardo Marques, Immanuel Mifsud, Simona Nastac, Bruno Neiva, Eugene Ostashevsky, Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl, Daniele Pantano, Astra Papachristodoulou, Cosmin Perţa, Jörg Piringer, Inga Pizane, Tomáš Přidal, Monika Rinck, Cia Rinne, Jon Ståle Ritland, Ekaterina Samigulina, Martin Glaz Serup, Ásta Fanney Sigurðardóttir, Muanis Sinanović, Morten Søndergaard, Esther Strauß, Kinga Toth, Nadia de Vries, Krišjānis Zeļģis.

EUROPOE, edited by British poet SJ Fowler and presented by European Poetry Festival in the UK, showcases those who are often on the margins of their own nations literary culture, precisely because their work is forward-looking and challenging, alongside some of the most renowned names in Europe. EUROPOE is an anthology as a unique document of poetry, marking a moment in time for a modern, and thoroughly European, means of experiencing literature.”

The European Poetry Festival Sampson Low Publication Series, and working on Orbiting the Yellow Ball May 6, 2019

A little lost in the immense shuffle of the European Poetry Festival was the project’s debut publications, released in limited edition, in partnership with Sampson Low Ltd. and Kingston University. This series of four new books, half original works of visual literature and half new translations from the Norwegian, presents four of Norway’s most considerable contemporary poets. For more info visit https://www.europeanpoetryfestival.com/sampsonlow

I had the personal pleasure of editing these books, working closely with the poets, and in the case of Jon Stale Ritland’s Orbiting the Yellow Ball, working very deeply with the translation process. I don’t have usable Norwegian so my role was to reform crib translations, which I’ve been asked to do many many times but rarely have said yes to, as that process is inherent fraught. This case different because Jon Stale’s English, as with most Norwegians, is better than mine. So it was much closer to a collaboration, and Jon Stale generously made me feel a part of the final poems were connected to my own often oblique poetics. I’m proud of the book, and that I had a role in it

Moreover working with the remarkable Alban Low, as I’ve had the opportunity to do often over the last few years, was a joy. He is as selfless as publishers come, working extremely hard to make the publications something special, a gift, for the poets. You can buy the whole series here https://sampsonlow.co/wck-pamphlets/european-poetry-festival-books/