Magma Poetry's National Conversation Event: Peel & Portion - Jan 15th 2016
January 25, 2016
A real pleasure to spend an evening the company of the Magma magazine audience, for an event exploring drafting, its process and concepts, curated by John Canfield and hosted by Patrick Davidson Roberts. I always enjoy speaking to people who aren’t perhaps familiar with my work, or even the philosophies that underpin, who see modernism or the avant-garde as something alien (though I don’t want to assume too much). It was an evening where the insights given by Rebecca Perry and Kathryn Maris, both of whom spoke wonderfully, complimented my more discursive, fundamental questions and ideas. And the audience really seemed to engage with this, the collective impetus of the event, and the notion that I want to question certain assumed ideas about what drafting means, from the creative impulse, to the notion of a language idea, to refining, to what might be called a finished piece. And that these questions aren’t necessarily antagonistic to more confirmed notions, that seem to proffer control of language in poetry. I was really touched to have quite a few people stop me after speaking and share their thoughts and enthusiasm and was very grateful to John and the team at Magma for having me involved in a really positive event in the lovely environs of the Teahouse Theatre in Vauxhall.