Published : Old the Dark in AnthraZine

Nice to have a poem in this beautifully produced debut publication from a new zine https://anthrazine.bigcartel.com/product/anthra

The poem was in my 2020 book ‘I will show you the life of the mind (on prescription drugs)’ and was written reading gerald manley hopkins after seeing a poem of his used as a cinematic epigraph for the film hold the dark. i then went and found the novel of this film and read it, and while i was writing poems for diamanda dramm to sing. they became a sequence. and this poem OLD THE DARK was what myself and the editor Molly Hills though most fitting to the theme of the zine, which is “exploring the relationship between humans and plants in an urban environment. It brings art, poetry and science together into a human space, to reflect on the ties between the wild and the domesticated.

A note on : Bastard Poems in the National Poetry Library

very happy my books of 2021, including the pictured Bastard Poems (Steel Incisors Press), have now found their way into the National Poetry Library at Southbank Centre and are on display in the acquisitions section. the library catalogue contains nearly 50 publications of mine and will, in 2022, take copies of everything i’ve published, including the ephemera. i keep an archive of all the books i’ve done, with a small stack of copies of each put aside, but it’s good to know the NPL will hold the full bibliography too.

A note on : Worm Wood and Tereza Stehlikova artist talk in London

Recently my long term collaborator and friend Tereza Stehlikova was in conversation with curator Gareth Evans about her practice, to mark the end of her exhibition Ophelia in Exile at the Czech Centre's Vitrínka Gallery. She was kind enough to discuss our film (image attached), and our long term project, Worm Wood, which screened in an early version at the whitechapel gallery in 2020. That project is still ongoing and more filming will take place this year as the area of west london it documents terraforms before the eyes of locals. You can follow Tereza’s work at https://cinestheticfeasts.com/

A note on : Poem to accompany Martin Parr Exhibition in Bristol

https://www.martinparrfoundation.org/exhibitions/intersectional-geographies/

Jacqueline Ennis Cole has put together a brilliant exhibition in Bristol, details at the link, and accompanied it with a new publication. I’m happy to have a poem in there, taken from my book The Wrestlers (2018 Kingston Uni Press) that fits the theme of the program. Jacqueline has been a key poet in the www.poembrut.com project and someone I’m proud to have worked with and commission.

A note on : collaborating with Phil Minton

A huge honour to have done a third improvised sound poetry / vocalisation with the legendary Phil Minton. Part of this event at Kingston University https://www.writerskingston.com/sound/

There’s so much I could say about working with Phil. An essay it demands. But the words of Julia Rose Lewis, a brilliant poet and friend, who was in the audience, meant a lot to me.

“The duet seemed to ask the audience to consider the twin questions what is evolution and what is literature?  In the sense that the work is extending the boundaries of poetry and therefore literature. / I kept finding myself wanting to lean forward. The imagined transparent barrier between and the feeling that leaning forward give me a better sense of what was happening.  Yet it obvious that you both fully understanding one another making irony of the very word nonsense.  / There were moments when I thought you were both apes, one ape saying something to one human, and both humans at the beginning and end.”

A note on : Babs in Folkestone

The next chapter in the babs saga, a series of new improvised talking performances im doing as a cockney cat. Soon to be collected on cassette, and this time at the Beyond Text festival in Folkestone.

It was a grand festival all told, wonderfully organised by Michal Piotrowski. I got to babs alongside matt martin and stephen emmerson, old mates, and meet fran lock, who was brilliant.

Babs seemed to go down well enough, and i even read a new poem before babsing, but i cut this out of the video here, for puritys sake

A note on : The Great Apes published in April with Broken Sleep Books

My next poetry collection will be released in April from Broken Sleep Books.

From the publisher “An inimitable and eccentric suite of five long poems in the most aberrant tradition of epic poetry; this sequenced fable grinds human nature through its cousins and throws words like faeces at a confused tourist. Rabid and satirical, The Great Apes is a poetry collection utterly unique, extraordinary and linguistically exciting. As avatars for avarice, here is the chimp, a charming villain; the gorilla, a corrupted dignitary; the bonobo, Sadean and debauched; the orangutan, knowing both too much and too little. Here is the human, the final chapter, the brain that names itself though it knows not why. The brain which is also a particular ape delicacy. Bon appétit.”

It’s my 10th collection. It’s the third in a loose series which utilises satirical anthropomorphism to be critical of delusional human behaviour, or something like that, following The Rottweiler’s Guide to the Down Owner (2014) and The Guide to Being Bear Aware (2017).

It’s conceptual though, five long poems each on a different ape, and so more in line with recent collections like I will show you the life of the mind (on prescription drugs) (2020).

I wrote it in a real burst about three years ago. I have tinkered since, but also needed to find the right publisher as it’s full of sex and violence. In part it uses adapted tracts from Marquis de Sade in fact.

It has also already been partially adapted to song too by Diamanda Dramm and forms part of her album “The Brain Book” launched this April also, at Dublin Music Week

A note on : First Writers Kingston event of 2022 at Waterstones

https://www.writerskingston.com/waterstones/ Readings from some brilliant young poets, many I work with at kingston university and making their debuts as performers, alongside some friends sharing new performances - a great first event of 2022 in the waterstones bookshop in kingston open late in the bentall centre. / All videos at the link

A note on announcing my first novella M U E U M

tenementpress.com/M-U-E-U-M

(Summer, MMXXII) COMING SOON

From the publisher : A novella of ludic menace, SJ Fowler’s M U E U M is a puzzle without pieces. Following the grand tradition of the Nestbeschmutzerauthors (one who dirties their own nest, vis-à-vis Bernhard and Gombrowicz,et al), M U E U M pictures the amassing and dismantling of a public edifice, brick by brick, in prose that refracts and breaks the light emitted by history’s ornaments and history’s omissions.

Suspended in unknowable time there is a city; in the city, an event, a conflict. Amid the ash, fog and cloud, there is the manufacturing of a space—a many-winged museum on the make. On the plinths, exquisite remnants of life present and past—adorning the walls, portraits of gentle torture sit hand in hand with brutal and statuesque portrayals of camaraderie—and the gift-shop is littered with plastic curios and gilt revulsion. Goya, as atmosphere rather than artwork, hovers amid iron age ghosts, bronzed ideas, and antiqued anxiety.

Pacing the halls, the atrium and corridor, there are those who keep the museum—the various midwives to the building’s demands—and those, like the reader, who merely visit; those who pass through the vacant galleries adrift with questions. What can I touch? What is next to Egypt? What is hidden in Mesopotamia? Where do we eat? Drink? Where is the entrance? The exit? In Fowler’s curt, spiralling and acute work, the museum’s keepers will answer...

A SONIC ITERATION OF THIS NOVELLA IS ALSO FORTHCOMING, & WILL BROADCAST SPRING MXXII WITH RESONANCE EXTRA PRIOR TO THE BOOK’S RELEASE

Published : Seen as Read - an anthology of visual, asemic and photopoetry

Seen as Read is an ambitious anthology of visual poetries that erases the line between viewer and reader. From stitches to typesetting, beeswax to periodic tables, handwritten abstraction to puzzling collages, this anthology amazes, amuses, and articulates ambiguity with a precision only visual poetry can. Emerging from a series of online programs run by SJ Fowler during the global lockdowns of 2020 and 2021, Seen as Read reaches far beyond the context of its conception, celebrating original work by nearly 40 poets across the world. It explores concrete poetry, asemic writing, photo poetry, conceptual literature and much more. It is a book made of poems alive even before they’re read, remaking visible language before the viewers very eyes.

Featuring works by Brian Baker, Richard Biddle, Mikael Buck, Susie Campbell, Kayleigh Cassidy, Anwyl Cooper-Willis, Patrick Cosgrove, Amelia Crouch, Madelaine Culver, Laura Davis, Beverley Frydman, Sylee Gore, David Hayward, Carolyn Hashimoto, Paul Hawkins, Alex Hegazy, Emma Hellyer, Tania Hershman, Sarah Hymas, Ben Jenner, Victoria Kaye, Chris Kerr, Evalyn Lee, Julia Rose Lewis, Rie Marsden, Ella Skilbeck Porter, Juliet Sprake, Adam Steiner, Agnieszka Studzińska, Stephen Sunderland, Pam Thompson, Simon Tyrrell, Martin Wakefield, Rushika Wick, Lori Wike, Lynette Willoughby

Available to purchase poembrut.bigcartel.com/product/seenasread £12.99
Now published by Kingston University Press in a second print run limited edition of 50.

Published : Beir Bua 2022 Vispo Calendar!

A good way to end the year, following Come and See the Songs of Strange Days (Broken Sleep), Sticker Poems (Trickhouse Press), Reading List Massage (If a leaf falls), Flowers Won’t Grow (Sampson Low), Bastard Poems (Steel Incisors) and 25 poems (Nomad / AB letterpress), this is my final and 7th publication of 2021

A calendar collaboration. Six months are my visual poems, six months are the visual poems of Michelle Moloney King, the brilliant editor behind Beir Bua. Safe to say, a unique thing, and if you wish for 2022 to be hounded by poem brutish vispo, please purchase one for 12 pounds here https://beirbuapress.com/2021/12/07/2022-vispo-calendar-sj-fowler-and-michelle-moloney-king/ ///

https://www.lulu.com/en/gb/shop/michelle-moloney-king-and-sj-fowler-and-beir-bua-press/2022-vipo-calendar-sj-fowler-and-michelle-moloney-king/paperback/product-6ev8mv.html?page=1&pageSize=4

A note on : Writers Kingston Sampson Low celebration

Sampson Low, edited by Alban Low, founded in 1792!, have published 5 of my works, and have allowed me to edit two series of the publications - the kingston university student poetry pamphlets and the poem brut debut pamphlets. They are remarkably good to work with, so generous, so supportive. We held an event in the beautiful town house at Kingston Uni to celebrate them, and though a bit shrunk in scale due to the omicron, we still had a blast. In fact it was maybe more of a blast, because it was friends and friends. https://www.writerskingston.com/#/sampsonlow21/

All the videos are at that link, and my own performance here

A note on : Kolkata's Chair poetry festival - a digital reading of Jacob's Ladder

I wish I could’ve gone to Kolkata for the chair poetry evenings this year, but a digital participation is quite the thing all the same. A great lineup and really lovely hosts to work with.

I gave a digital reading of a special sequence of poems, to me. Jacob’s Ladder is a series of 9 texts, partially made of Meister Eckhart’s writing, a love poem really, that I then published in two parts across my books I will show you the life of the mind and Come and see the songs of strange days. I had never read it before as one.

Published : Trickhouse annual 2021

Publishing sticker poems with dan power’s trickhouse press was a highlight of my year. I am thus pleased to be in good company having an interview with dan, and some works, in the new, inaugural trickhouse annual https://www.trickhousepress.com/product/2022-annual/8?cs=true&cst=custom Some great people in there too

“The Trickhouse Press annual is a wide-ranging and forward-thinking compendium of work, showcasing the most exciting visual poetry in the UK and beyond. It's a collection of collections, each given A4 space and the full range of colour needed to create the desired effect. Every work is self-contained and full of character. This book is packed with innovation and play and surprise - I'm so pleased with how it's come together, and I can't wait for you to read it!

A note on : Robert Sheppard's brilliant essay on collaboration

Robert Sheppard, whom I interviewed in great depth here https://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/maintenant-107-robert-sheppard/, has consolidated some of his brilliant blog writings on collaborations for an essay in the Yearbook of contemporary British and Irish poetry. It spends generous amount time offering analysis of my enemies project and my selected collaborations Nemeses, offering insights into my article in that book and my work with Prudence Chamberlain Bussey and Camilla Nelson amongst others. It’s a rare thing, to have a poet of Robert’s ability and insight, offer such attention to my collaborative endeavours.

It’s edited by Samuel Rogers and on jstor here https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5699/yearenglstud.51.issue-2021?refreqid=fastly-default%3A30d35ada6a2552d95c7b3f42da6afa5a

Published : asemic poem in Buzdokuz

Brilliant to have an asemic work in the new issue of http://www.buzdokuz.com edited by Hasan Bozdas, Hayriye Ünal, Hakan Şarkdemir, Murat Üstübal, Atakan Yavuz, Hasan Bozdaş, Zeynep Arkan, Serkan Işın, Burak Ş. Çelikout out of Turkey.

It collects together a huge amount of material, and this issue is an exploration of asemic work, so good to included alongside friends and many new to me, especially those doing avant garde poetry in Turkey right now. I’ve had links with Turkish poets for a decade but the discovery of buzdokuz has been revelatory. My work in there is a constellation asemic taken from my selected scribbling and scrawling, with zimzalla https://zimzalla.co.uk/051-sj-fowler-scribbling-and-scrawling-2nd-edition/ which is in its second or third print run now

A note on : EPF Austria performance - Asemic suit and the Magnificent Butcher

Originally planned as a collaboration with the Austrian visual poet and graphic designer, Stefan Ellmer, who couldn’t come to London at the last minute due to the Omicron, this was a homage laden performance, and one i had a lot of fun doing.

It was a layered thing, with some leading intro, then audio, then a boiler suit, some asemic writing, some collaborative help… inspired by Stefan and leaving me, as a final reveal, to show the clothes under the suit as also asemic’d, written through and permanently marked.

A note on : EPF Austria, the festival ends

The festival for 2021 wrapped up with what was perhaps the most complete, or cohesive event. It was finalised by two remarkable collaborations between Magdalena Mclean and Verena Durr, and Cornelia Hulmbauer and Ollie Evans. Their work was clever, wry, playful, literary. Hard to do for 10 minutes and keep everyone with you, and they did. The evening was opened by a half dozen solo readings too, all of them exceptional. Well worth looking through the videos here https://www.europeanpoetryfestival.com/austria

The evening went on long past the final reading, a really genial, generous atmosphere and lovely for me to say goodbye to the fest with so many friends, and the lovely people at the austrian cultural forum, who have been so supportive over the years. Photos below, and at the link, by Madeleine Rose Elliott