Published : Mueum

my debut novella - mueum - is now available to buy from Tenement press tenementpress.com/M-U-E-U-M

A showcase, ransacked with horrid delight: Fowler's MUEUM presents the placid, lurid violences of surveillance and exhibition with startling and brutal stylishness. A seething triumph. Eley Williams

A book as powerful, monumental and strange as Alasdair Gray's Lanark in miniature. Joanna Walsh

To be launched with a series of events this October, followed by broadcasts of the audio book on Resonance Extra. More soon, and here

"A novella of ludic menace, a puzzle without pieces, SJ Fowler’s MUEUM 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. Pacing the hall, 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?"

Deeply, beautifully unsettling, and somehow so complete that I have screwed up and rewritten this endorsement seventeen times. As a text, MUEUM seems to eat any potential response to it. Sometimes I called it a mesmerising, bravura meditation on work, power, and subjugation; sometimes I called it the psychopathology of the institution; sometimes I just made sub-animal noises. Initially I just felt awe at how compelling Fowler can make the sheer tedium of labour, in an environment terrifyingly regimented, curious (and intimate, like being let backstage behind existence itself), but this was gradually replaced by an increasing suspense and horror which got its claws into me for the whole last half of the novella. Anyway. It makes me very happy—and also insanely jealous—that works like this are being written.
Luke Kennard

A note on : working with Pat Randle and Angie Butler at Whittington Press

so so grand to work again with printer / artists, and friends, angie butler and pat randle at the legendary whittington press in the cotswolds. one of the highlights of 2021 for me, we made a publication entitled 25 poems. the poems were about the process of making the book and letterpress culture / vocabulary and this embedded, cohesive, direct collaboration not only began a new path for me thinking through what is possible with poetry and printed material, but also created a real bond between us. since then we had a couple of events together, to the keep fire burning, and now we’ve returned to work, potentially on another publication. as before, it was just such a blast to hang out with them both, and to learn from their skill

A note on : Japanese UK poetry exchange, coming September

JUPE : Japanese UK Poetry Exchange

September 2022 and January 2023 with multiple events in both Japan and the UK.

With Kyoko Yoshida, fukudapero, Colin Herd and SJ Fowler, and all latest lineups here https://www.theenemiesproject.com/jupe

A remarkable international poetry project, featuring new collaborations made by Japanese and British poets across the globe, performed at six special Camarade events taking place across the UK and Japan. Centred around the creative and curatorial work of Fukudapero, Kyoko Yoshida, Colin Herd and Steven J Fowler, JUPE will see events in Norwich, London, Glasgow, Kingston upon Thames, Kyoto and Tokyo across autumn 2022 and early 2023. Each events will feature the four primary collaborator protagonist poets as well as local poets invited to contribute new duets, made for the night, too. A literary project that aims to break new ground, emphasising the possibilities of poetry and performance over and alongside translation, and to forge new bonds between two nations, exploring what is possible for modern poets working across languages, styles, cultures. / Supported by The Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation, Daiwa Foundation, National Centre for Writing, Writers Kingston at Kingston University and Glasgow University.

September Friday 16th : JUPE in Norwich https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/whats-on/meet-the-world-japan-to-the-uk-poetry-in-collaboration/
September Sunday 18th : JUPE in London https://www.theenemiesproject.com/jupe
September Saturday 17th : JUPE in Glasgow https://www.theenemiesproject.com/jupe
September Monday 19th : JUPE in Kingston https://www.writerskingston.com/#/japan/

A note on : TYPOETRY comes to a close at Applecart Arts

A beautiful afternoon in Newham, at Applecart Arts centre, a series of the poets from TYPOETRY came together to read their works and celebrate what has been a remarkable project that has done something with visual and experimental and public poetry that few projects in the capital, let alone Newham, ever have done.

For me it was grand to read the poems of some of the poets involved who weren’t there, to meet Laura Accerboni, who travelled to the UK from Switzerland and to say out loud that the day belonged to David Killian Beck, who originated TYPOETRY and worked so hard to make it happen

A note on : Julia Rose Lewis' article on The Great Apes

Brilliant. Readable in full at HVTN https://hvtn.substack.com/p/elaborate-biological-filigrees?sd=pf

“SJ Fowler is inquiring what chimpanzees have to say about our blindness to our life history? It is a mirror not a miracle. Haeckel’s Law states that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. Ontogeny refers to the unfolding of the body of the organism in time otherwise known as embryology and developmental biology. Without it, we synthesize again and again and soon we are lost. Haeckel writes: ‘we do not really understand [the facts of embryology] until we trace them to their true phylogenetic causes, and see that each of these apparently simple processes is the recapitulation of a long series of historical changes.’ [2] Phylogeny refers to the unrolling of species in time otherwise known as descent with modification and evolutionary biology.

The origin of recapitulation means gone through heading by heading, chapter repeating, again diminutive of head. Let us go through the series of readings. Fowler created a film reading of The Great Apes for the Broken Sleep Books Extravaganza on 14th April 2022.[3] [4] The event took place after the face-to-face launch of The Great Apes and before the online launch.[5] [6]…..

Ontogeny unrolls the self. Fowler is unrolling line after line of the chimpanzee poem. He repeats the phrase, it’s a fight, twice in the reading and its echoing creates a stillness in sound and meaning following itself. It’s a fight that’s so still to refrigerator, where the fight is a long unresolved conflict, where the fight is decay slowed to the point of stillness as a refrigerator slows the growth of bacteria and mold. Is he saying refrigerator or refrigerate her, where refrigerate means to hold her body before burial, the reader finds themselves in the middle of grief. Is the fight consuming her or foreshadowing ‘Mary mother of glitter’ in the next line? [9] In the supermarket, it is a fight with consumerism and modernity. Here refrigerate comes from back cold becoming; it is the exposure of the private time in the public. So the supermarket is recalling the human missing the chimp part of himself. There is primate echoing private. Chimps have thick hair down their backs that helps them maintain body temperature in cold and rain and it is missing from humans. Ontogeny unrolls; it is the vase found before the outlines of birth and grief…..”

EPF #14 - Ireland Euro Camarade, the fest finishes

Such a gift of a finish for the fest. This was so lovely, so high standard, and so fun – the travel, the general ambiance of Ireland, the chance to stay away – that it broke the flow in my mind that my festival was one huge boat of work, and instead it felt, at the end, that I was just getting lucky to do a gig in a special place. Christodoulos Makris deserves huge credit for his curatorial work on this event, and the Riverbank Arts Centre is so nice. All the works on the night were excellent, and such a range. Afterwards we decamped to a local pub that felt like it was stuck in time, a rare thing for me, and I was able to see off what has been the biggest single event undertaking of my life in remarkably jovial and relaxed fashion. https://www.europeanpoetryfestival.com/ireland

For my own part I worked with the musician and artist Nick Roth, whom I’ve known for a few years but worked with for the first time early in 2022. He could not be more excellent to work with, so experienced, present, professional. He is a great improviser too, I had complete trust with him and we attempted something quite rare / pure, to not plan anything but the idea of a conversation between improv talking and sax. The results are something I am pleased with.

EPF #13 - York Euro Camarade

This event really popped the balloon of 12 events in London and pressure. It made the festival process feel easier, more adventurous, less entirely on my back. That is in no small part thanks to my co curator JT Welsch at the University of York, but also all the poets this night, who were so good and so nice, including really dear friends Dave Spittle, and Hungarian poets Kornelia Deres and Peter Zavada, with whom I travelled up and down with. Just really communal, generous, supportive atmosphere with excellent pairs work. https://www.europeanpoetryfestival.com/york22

For my own part, the third poet collaborator I had dropped out on the day so I did a weird solo thing, which I think worked quite well but also maybe came across a little more intensely than I planned it. Worth it to do but maybe 13 events effects you.

EPF #12 - Netherlands Poetry Celebration

A brilliant event, but a challenging one to curate and perform at, purely because the task of doing a 45 minute sound poetry improvisation with legendary figures Phil Minton and Jaap Blonk, along with Audrey Chen, while also introducing and helping others was a stretch. Worth it though.

Asha Karami visited from Netherlands and gave a great performance with Joanne Dixon, as did many of the other supporting poets, and always it’s like going home to work with Isa and Eduard at Iklectik. https://www.europeanpoetryfestival.com/netherlands-2022

What I am most proud of in my work is its range. My curiosity had led me to practise multiple poetry methodologies at the same time, at what I hope is a high level. I see textual and semantic poetry as one element of many, with visual, asemic, collage, sound, collaboration, photo, film, curatorial, pedagogical etc… They are all branches of the same tree. I choose always my method as well as my subject. And this collaboration, in terms of sound poetry, is one of the high points for me, and likely always will be. To work with Minton and Blonk at the same time connects me to a lineage which isn’t just about their decades of work, but also how they draw from two traditions, arguably – improvised vocalisation and sound poetry – and fuse them. I feel like working with them now, in my mid thirties, will give me scope beyond what I know is possible in improv sound poetry for a long time to come, if I keep doing it of course.

EPF #11 - Catalan Poetry Celebration

The 11th and penultimate London event, and our first at Iklectik Artlab. The last event to be put together for the fest, thanks to the quick work of Marc Duenas and colleagues, we hosted four Catalan poets, including Jansky, who blew me away earlier in the year, alongside Maria Callis and Josep Pedrals, who I met in Macedonia, and my colleague at Kingston university, Albert Pellicer. https://www.europeanpoetryfestival.com/catalan22

EPF #10 - Slovenian Poetry Celebration

Quite something to say this was the most intense event of the festival, especially after the Swiss event, but I think it was. Boiling hot, completely full, out in Ealing enjoying the unusual hospitality of Mandie Wilde at Open Ealing, our three Slovenian poets were each so fully committed to their collaborations and performances, something came together here, something heady and surreal at times. The sense of camaraderie was really distinct too. https://www.europeanpoetryfestival.com/slovenia22

For my part, literally put together minutes before and arranged the night before, I did a quick improv collaboration with Maud van Hauwaert. Her work is so attractive, accomplished, we gelled I think, and could’ve done an hour.

EPF #9 - Flanders Poetry Celebration

My first time working with Flanders Literature and it was such a positive experience, thanks to Patrick Peeters there, but also because of the three Flemish poets, Paul Demets, Maud van Hauwaert and Lies Van Gasse. I’ve followed their work for a long time, and their collaborators – Eley Williams, Bettina Fung and Mischa Foster Poole – are so good it couldn’t be a bad event. Chris McCabe was also on hand being super hospitable at the National Poetry Library, and to a packed crowd the performances were memorable. https://www.europeanpoetryfestival.com/flanders22

EPF #8 - Latvian Poetry Celebration

One of the most generous and consistent supporters of the festival, Latvian Literature, once again allowed us to host three visiting Latvian poets, this time at Kingston University, where I teach, for a packed out event in the award winning town house building. This was a special night not just for the brilliant collabs made by the Latvians and myself, and two Kingston Uni graduates, Kayona Daley and Maria Celina Val, but also for the first meeting of the entire Popogrou collective. This collective has grown up around some of my courses in the lockdown and some further workshops since then. Members are uniformly talented and kind people, and they brought their people, and it was such a generous, interesting evening. Two book launches marked the night too, Vicki Kaye’s Fractured Light and Simon Tyrrell’s presently.

For my own part I collaborated for the third time with Krisjanis Zelgis, who has become a friend and one of my favourite performance partners. We discussed a lot but planned little, until the day itself, when we met and it all came together so smoothly. Our first work involved drinking water and shampooing hair, our second was wrestling. The third closed the circle of our rituals, with brotherhood evoked in closeness, carrying and grooming. Or something like that. So wonderful that Alban Low was also on hand to make these drawings too.

EPF #7 - Lithuanian Poetry Celebration

Back at Rich Mix one week after our Swiss event, this time celebrating Lithuanian poets. Another brilliant weird heady slightly unhinged night of performances with a lovely friendly communal atmosphere. Ideal really, and amazing so many people came, it was packed out. Some brilliant live works all watchable here https://www.europeanpoetryfestival.com/lithuania22

I did a quick last minute collab with Mikael Buck as my original partner couldn’t make it, and that’s often my role, jumping in to work with those who have lost their partner, or throwing something together on the day. All the better. We did a live photoshoot of sorts, and celebrated Johnny Crayons

EPF #6 - Finnish Poetry Celebration

The first time I’ve curated a Finnish event, and in the midst of the tube train strikes, and on a boiling day, and with planes being cancelled, it ended up being a brilliant, communal, playful, memorable night. Candid arts hosted us, down in a basement space that is the kind of venue rarely seen in London nowadays, really atmospheric. Milka Luhtaniemi and Callie Michail / Sini Silveri and Prudence Chamberlain-Bussey / Ko Ko Thett and Susie Campbell led the way with new collaborations alongside Max Höfler and Patrick Cosgrove / Sophia Mold and Julia Rose Lewis / Agnese Graudina and Hanna Komar / Xelis de Toro. Some stand out work here, all worth a watch on video https://www.europeanpoetryfestival.com/finland22

EPF #5 - Austrian Poetry Celebration

These are always good. I owe a lot of the festival’s beginning to the austrian cultural forum, who ‘vouched’ for the unique nature of my events to many cultural agencies, and the austrian scene is so rooted in performance and complex poetry, it’s hard not have a good event. This was a lift for me, a packed room, no space at all, and six great performances. Hannah Bründl and Han Smith, Max Höfler and David Spittle, and myself and Fabian Faltin as the centrepiece. Loads of friends came too. Such a good atmosphere. Loads of pics and videos here https://www.europeanpoetryfestival.com/austria22

Fabian and I have a rare collaborative relationship. He’s one of the very best I’ve worked with, so so sharp, never a moment lost in doing improvised performance, and remarkable with concepts too. Our work together in 2019 is one of my favourite collaborations, and this was a sequel. Video coming soon. It involved a microwave, which you can see below from Alban Low’s remarkable drawing from the event (he did a whole set viewable here http://artofjazz.blogspot.com/2022/06/austrian-poetry-celebration-european.html)

We also launched a new anthology on the night. A pamphlet from Sampson Low Ltd that chronicles a selection of the collaborations from previous ACF EPF collaborative events too. It came out beautifully. It can be bought here https://sampsonlow.co/2022/06/24/an-anthology-of-poetic-collaborations-from-across-europe/ “From its inception the European Poetry Festival has worked in partnership with the Austrian Cultural Forum London to present remarkable events that celebrate live literature, innovation in poetry and collaboration. Since 2018 poets from across Austria have visited the UK annually, to present new works made in pairs with local, British-based counterparts. These live poems, made for these nights, find themselves in print, for the first time, for this special, limited edition anthology. From the multi-lingual to the visual, from the the theatrical to the conceptual, these poems are as dynamic on the page, newly fashioned for that purpose, as they were when shared live, in the remarkable venue of the ACF London. An anthology of poetic collaborations from across Europe : Hannah Bründl and Han Smith, Fabian Faltin and SJ Fowler, Cornelia Hülmbauer and Ollie Evans, Max Höfler and Iris Colomb, Sophie-Carolin Wagner and Vilde Bjerke Torset, Robert Prosser and SJ Fowler, Daniela Chana and Phoebe Power, Verena Dürr and Magdalena McLean”

A note on : Poem on canal for J&L Gibbons, Urban Mind and Canal trust

The next chapter in my longstanding residency with the remarkable J&L Gibbons landscape architects.https://jlg-london.com/Steven-J-Fowler-Residency

A poem for their Urban Mind & the Canal & River Trust project, whom have recently developed an ambitious nation-wide citizen science project exploring the mental health benefits of spending time beside water. https://www.urbanmind.info/canal-and-river-trust-study

I have spent so much time exploring and walking the canals of England, doing the Grand union from London to Birmingham even. Magic to have this poem published and so well received as part of this research.

A note on : Millfield school film poems

I loved this project. Absolutely remarkable job by James Knight to curate new poems for students at Millfield school for them to respond with brand new film poems. The results were screened together and are available on youtube here. The presentation, the range of invention, and specifically to have my work essentially translated, quite a thing.

At the very end I had the chance to offer a little commentary on the four films made specifically about my poems written for the studnets, 57.20.

A note on : Ghosts in the Machine group show in Hong Kong

Excellent to have a work in this group show

World Book Night 2022 - Ghosts in the Machine / Hong Kong Design Institute Library (LRC) - Until 19th September 2022

An exhibition organised by WBN participants Jessica Ho Yuk Ching and Yau Wai Man, the images have been printed on Tree free- FSC Certified 250gsm recycled paper, sponsored by Antalis (HK). Hong Kong Design Institute, 3 King Ling Road, Tseung Kwan O, Hong Kong. https://www.hkdi.edu.hk/en/about/#tabs-about-campus

Published : onesided fistfight in

https://shipwrightsreview.org/onesided-fistfight-9d0d9c571214 Over ten years ago I published this sound poem, which i wrote at the writers forum in london and was in my FIGHTS collection, in a swedish journal called shipwrights review. they’ve just revived and kindly let me know they’ve republished. weird and wonderful to see the work i was doing a long time ago. the link also has an amazing audio feature where you can listen to a roboto pronounce my neologisms