Fuselit: Cut Out and Keep

Fossil closes and plans begin

noreply@blogger.com (Kirsten Irving) — Fri, 24 Oct 2014 21:17:00 +0000

That's it! Fuselit Fossil is closed. And with it, fittingly, the end of an era.

The eagle-eyed among you might have noticed that Fuselit is perennially behind schedule. This is due in no small part a) to Jon and Kirsty's other commitments, such as Sidekick Books, paying the exorbitant London rent etc. and b) the increasingly elaborate format of Fuselit, which many of you have kindly complimented over the years.

We would like to change this. To do this, drastic measures must be taken. We're planning and plotting what these will entail, but almost certainly, Fossil will be the last hand-made issue. In some ways it's very sad for us, as it's part of what made Fuselit unique. In other ways, it's a relief.

As soon as we've hatched our diabolical plans, we will let you know. In the meantime, Kirsty is working through the hundreds of excellent Fossil submissions (some beauties in there) and we'll be sewing Amazons by the light of Netflix.

Thanks, as ever, for your patience, your artwork and your support. It means so much to us.

J & K x

Fossil is closing soon for submissions!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 05 Oct 2014 21:29:00 +0000

Hello one and all!

As Amazon is finally on its way to contributors, Fuselit Fossil will be closing for submissions on 12th October 2014. This will be the last issue of Fuselit in this format. We'll say more in due course, but the huge delay in production might give some clues as to why we're changing tack. It will be exciting, rest assured...

If you've submitted work for Fossil and are waiting to hear back, K is on it, and slowly working through the avalanche of creative responses. Some truly excellent stuff - it's going to be magnificent.

Thanks, as ever!

DIY Cultures Fair

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 22:39:00 +0000

If your thing is the production or consumption of unique, beautifully shaped zines, comics or crafts, and you're within trotting distance of Bethnal Green this Sunday, then Mr Owl and I suggest you jog on to the DIY Cultures Fair at Rich Mix, Bethnal Green Road. Flit like an unseasonable moth between "zines, artist books, comics, artists-run spaces, talks, films, animation, video art, exhibition, workshops - the spirit of independence, autonomy & alternatives."

Workshops and events include "Sew your own collar", "The spinny whoa-a-trope", and Ceri May's needle felting, which will show you how to make something similar to the wide-eyed little charmer you see here.

Camarade Poetry Reading: K v Ryan Van Winkle!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 17:26:00 +0000

On Saturday 9th February, SJ Fowler presents the fourth edition of his collaboration project Camarade. 26 poets have been paired up and challenged to create something ~~unholy~~ incredible together. Kirsty will be joining forces with Ryan Van Winkle (investigate his book, Tomorrow We Will Live Here) on a very strange love letter.

The full line-up promises an impressive mixture of sonic, experimental, formal and free-flowing poetry. If you fancy something a little different to your average reading, get thee to Shoreditch.

Click on the flyer for more information.

Nearest tubes: Shoreditch High Street, Liverpool Street, Old Street.

Fire Hazard wants your Underground poems!

noreply@blogger.com (Kirsten Irving) — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 14:00:00 +0000

Fantastic Hull-based magazine Turbulence sent us the following call. Get subterranean!

Submissions are now open for the first Fire Hazard anthology, "Underground".

To mark the 150th anniversary of the opening of the world's first underground railway in London in 1863, Fire Hazard is compiling a print anthology of poetry dealing with experiences of underground railways and their impact (for better and worse) on the communities they serve around the world.

Themes could include (but are by no means limited to):

Construction of underground railways
History of the lines and the stations
The above-ground communities the underground serves
The experience of commuting / travelling underground
The art of the underground
People experienced on the underground
Subterranean geographies / cities
Mapping the underground

If you would like your work to be considered for this anthology, please send up to four poems and a brief biographical note to us at firehazardpoetry@gmail.com with the word "underground" in the subject title. The deadline for submissions in March 31st, 2013. All included poets will receive an electronic copy of the anthology, hardcopies of which will be available for purchase in early summer.

http://turbulencepoetry.blogspot.com/

Where is the Amazon?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 18:33:00 +0000

Just a quick update to apologise for the delay of the elusive next issue, Amazon. In between starting a freelance copywriting/editing business (oh yes, Copy That!) I've been collating and checking and the little design hamster in Jon's head has been huffing and puffing in his wheel.

I can tell you three things:

1. The cover looks great.

2. Looking back at the poems, prose and artwork selected for the issue, it looks set to be one of our strongest Fuselit issues yet.

3. It shall be upon us like a squirrel monkey in the not-too-distant future.

Meanwhile, we are still considering submissions for Fossil. If you're waiting for a reply, I'm working my way through, trying to give all pieces a good read and ponder. If you're considering submitting to us:

a) Check our guidelines please. This will cause the rapport between us to grow rosier by a factor of 10.

b) Consider calling your piece something other than 'Fossil'. I get rather a lot of these, and many are fantastic Fuse-fodder, but a little titular variety would be good.

c) The Fuselit inbox is an ongoing project for me, and works a little like a deli counter. As you arrive, you join the back of the queue and I work from oldest to newest, trying to stay within the time limit for replies. With that in mind, any time-sensitive questions (not submissions) would be best emailed to contact@drfulminare.com.

I think that brings us up to date. Once again, thanks to everyone for their support, enthusiasm and patience. Don't know about you but I'm pretty excited about our upcoming jungle adventure.

By the way, if you're on Twitter and haven't already followed us, we're @SidekickBooks.

I'm Walking Backwards (but looking forward) for Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 25 Dec 2012 15:16:00 +0000

Just a quick post to say thank you to everyone for a great year. Sidekick Books has had a tiring but good 2012, putting out the second part of our four-volume tribute to Britain's birds, Birdbook II: Freshwater Habitats, and the long-awaited print version of Simon Barraclough's Hitchcock tribute Psycho Poetica.

Fuselit Amazon will be out next year too, and I look forward to choosing the work for its successor, Fossil. If you've sent us work, I'll be in touch.

Whether you've written for us, illustrated for us, bought books, come to readings, evangelised about our strange schemes online or simply investigated the dark world of Dr Fulminare in passing, we appreciate it and will continue to provide characteristically Sidekick weirdness in 2013.

K x

Birdbook Launch, 17 December!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 22:52:00 +0000

It's on! Sidekick Books' Birdbook II: Freshwater Habitats will officially take flight at 7.30pm on Monday 17 December at Paper Dress Boutique and Bar, Shoreditch!

We'll be having short readings from a flock of the poets involved in the project, along with projections of the beautiful artwork representing each of these incredible freshwater birds. We're looking forward to meeting the talented writers and artists who have made this book such a treat to produce.

Nearest tubes are Shoreditch High St (Overground), Liverpool Street and Old Street, and stacks of buses go to the area.

Ah yes, and the Facebook event is here!

We'd love to say hello, so if you're in London at that time, come on down and have a flutter!

Fuselit in 2013

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Stone) — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 11:45:00 +0000

This is just a note to say that our mission to make Fuselit a twice-yearly event has thus far stumbled, as we've been thoroughly caught up with our work over at Sidekick Books, events surrounding our own poetry collections (both published by Salt this year), our day jobs and, oh, all sorts really!

But fear not; the Fuselit tradition will continue, and Amazon might be our most ambitious issue yet. If it does have to settle into more of an annual rhythm, so be it!

Binders Full of Women!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 21:31:00 +0000

Sophie Mayer and Sarah Crewe, the all-editing, all-curating creators of the Pussy Riot anthology Catechism, have only gone and made sexy great binders full of poetry by women! If you need an excuse for a hearty dose of feminism and all-round love, the proceeds go to Rape Crisis UK and the Michael Causer Foundation. Pick up your binder today!

In case the title of this project rings no bells, here's a little something about Presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

Kirsty's book is loose - catch it quick!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 18:34:00 +0000

Never Never Never Come Back is out now from Salt Publishing! Available initially in a limited hardback run, with gorgeous hotfoiling under a dust jacket featuring artwork by the very talented Matt Latchford.

Here's the spiel!

Don’t go over the hill, or look too long into the well, or go carousing with strangers, or you’ll never never never come back. With the haunting quality of nursery rhymes but the complexity of a dark and smoky wine, these poems brood on absence and abandonment, outcasts and anomalies, monstrosity and mistakes.

At the heart of the collection are a suite of tightly focused, often impressionistic character studies ranging from cannibals to schoolgirls, but Irving also finds space in the shadows for desperate love songs to pilots and robots, satiric odes to tyrants and deft engagements with popular and literary culture. Whether turning the features of a pinball table into an emotional debris field or recounting unnerving sexual encounters, these are rich and rangy poems of a defiantly unusual character that linger in the mind as much for their controlled dissonances as their uncompromising subject matter.

Huge thanks to Salt Publishing's Chris Hamilton-Emery and my editor Roddy Lumsden. I could not be more stoked.

Stay tuned for launch details!

For review copies, contact me at kirsten.irving@gmail.com.

Catechism: Poems for Pussy Riot

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 06 Oct 2012 17:27:00 +0000

In protest at the disproportionate and injust incarceration of three members of Russian punk band Pussy Riot, and as a gesture of solidarity with Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich, the magnificent English PEN have released Catechism: Poems for Pussy Riot. Commissioned, curated and edited by UK poets Mark Burnhope, Sarah Crewe and Sophie Mayer, this collection has drawn together a huge range of writers, asked them to pen responses to the situation and then encouraged said poets to pose in balaclavas in support of perhaps the three most famous devotchkas out there right now. The resulting anthology has been flagged up by the US Poetry Foundation and The Guardian, and continues to grow in stature and support. With contributions from as far afield as Kenya and Austria, Catechism has become a borderless project, uniting poets from across the globe. Indeed, many translators have stepped up to provide Russian versions of the poems. A group of the poets involved conducted a protest outside the Russian Embassy in London on 1 October, on what was originally scheduled as the girls' appeal date (since moved to 10 October). You can see videos of that protest here, as captured by contributor S. J. Fowler:

New Pussy Riot poems are being posted on the English PEN website every day. Catechism is available in e-book format for a donation and in sexy hard copy for a mere £7.95 plus p&p. You can also follow English PEN on Twitter (@englishpen) and search by the hashtag #freepussyriot for further updates on the case.

Fuselit announces new issue word!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 21:05:00 +0000

That's right! We'd like your poetry, prose, artwork, music, spoken word, collage, and any form of art that can fit into an A6 format without significant loss of life or limb, on the subject of...FOSSIL!

As ever, PLEASE READ OUR GUIDELINES CAREFULLY! They are there to help! Look forward to seeing what you unearth!

Birdbook II/Coin Opera II update!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 31 Aug 2012 20:57:00 +0000

So a brief update is very much in order on our next two books, Birdbook II: Freshwater habitats and Coin Opera II. To accompany this, I've tried to find an image that captures both projects.

Birdbook II is very nearly ready to go printerwards. We've received a foreword from the fantastic Tim Birkhead, proofing has been done and it's just minor tweaks to go. For the uninitiated, this is the second book in a series of four, in which we aim to gather one poem and one illustration for every species of British bird. Each book covers a group of habitats. Volume II is looking great, helped in no small part by the return of Lois Cordelia, who has once again provided her beautiful artwork for the cover.

Coin Opera II, our second anthology of poetic tributes to computer games, is looking good too. With cover art by the very talented Mike Stone and a whole bundle of computer game-themed formal Easter eggs (including what may be the world's first set of 'boss' poems), this is going to be a mighty power-up from our initial micro-anthology, back in 2009. A foreword from Uncanny X Men writer and video games journalist Kieron Gillen, a spot more collaging and rearranging, a good old proof and it'll be off to press before you can say Hadouken.

More updates to come. Stay tuned!

Don't forget you can follow us on Twitter.

YPN August Challenge draws to a close

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Stone) — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 17:21:00 +0000

The final of my 15 simple/weird formal exercises is up on Young Poets' Network today and the deadline for mini-collection submissions is tomorrow!

Here, then, to recap are the 15 challenges, with examples by yours truly:

1. Bookshelf Poem
2. Squid Poem
3. Censorship Poem
4. Helicopter Poem
5. Skeleton Poem
6. Jungle Trail Poem
7. Hollywood Remake Poem
8. U-Boat Poem
9. DVD Extra Poem
10. Manga Poem
11. Scoop! Poem
12. Google Search Poem
13. Vampire Aubade
14. Earthquake Poem
15: Chinese Whisper Poem

Poets for Pussy Riot

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Stone) — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 15:31:00 +0000

Both Kirsty and I will be reading at this next week in support of the imprisoned members of Russian punk band Pussy Riot.

Poets for Pussy Riot

Wednesday August 29th 2012 - 7pm until late - Free entrance

at the Rich mix arts centre, main space venue,

35-47 Bethnal Green Road, London E1 6LA 020 7613 7498

With the news that Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich of the Russian punk collective, Pussy Riot, were sentenced to two years in prison for a wholly necessary and valid political protest, contemporary poets in London will come together in a unique evening of readings, featuring original poetry and text, as well as the words of Pussy Riot themselves. This event is an act of solidarity through the medium of poetry - a celebration of the courage and spirit of fellow writers of this generation, writing for real political change in a country that needs it.

Featuring readings from over 30 poets including Tim Atkins, David Berridge, Becky Cremin, Kirsty Irving, Francesca Lisette, Chris McCabe, Reza Mohammadi, Sandeep Parmar, Tom Raworth, Jack Underwood, James Wilkes and many others.

Email: steven@sjfowlerpoetry.com for further details

Self-esteem tips from beautiful rich people

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 12:14:00 +0000

I've been out of the loop musically for a while now, so forgive me picking up on a two-year-old song, but what spell has Katy Perry cast over the internet that I can't find a single angry review of 'Firework'?

Perry seems to have rehabilitated herself since the days of 'I Kissed A Girl' (slammed by Gossip singer Beth Ditto as a "boner dyke anthem") and the ridiculously-defended 'UR So Gay', and decided that the real PR gold lies in Aguilera Hills. Xtina's 2002 song 'Beautiful' basically did 'Firework' with a stronger vocal range eight years prior to Perry's effort.

Let's compare the two videos:

Beautiful (2002)
Negative female body image (skinny girl examining self in mirror)
Negative male body image (skinny boy lifting weights, surrounded by pictures of muscular men)
Bullying
Gay kiss
Suggested transgender issues (not clear whether the cross-dressing guy is meant to be a transvestite or a transgender woman)

Firework (2010)
Negative female body image (girl at pool party afraid to take off robe around her skinny friends)
Childhood cancer (how a bouncy pop song is supposed to help you cope with that, I ain't sure)
Gay kiss
White gay getting mugged by group of mixed-race men (hmm, really breaking down the barriers here) and using - get this - magic tricks to see them off. Sound advice for urban dwellers.

So I guess let's start with the kiss in each case. I was never a Christina fan and lyrically 'Beautiful' is still cloying and self-helpy in that all-American way, but hell, at least it was written by someone who understood what it was like to be gay. At the time, the video did piss some people off, for no reason other than that the kiss between two men was passionate and sustained. Aguilera has not been averse to the odd faux-gay stunt (snogging Madonna onstage with Britney while wearing a sexy wedding frock was particularly cynical), but this, as saccharine as it was, felt sincere. Aguilera herself never comes into contact with the characters, singing from a bare room while the action goes on outside.

In contrast, the characters in Perry's video, watched over by their firework-boobed guardian angel, seem chucked in to show that KATY PERRY CARES ABOUT UGLY PEOPLE AND CANCER CHILDREN. All they need is her singing and pyrotechnics to teach them not to care that people want to kill them, or leukaemia wants to kill them, or that muggers want to kill them, or that they want to kill themselves. Don't be a downer! Come and boogie your knife wounds away!

Perhaps if Perry herself had at least appeared in the video without a trace of makeup, it would have been a start towards sincerity or solidarity with the girl suffering low self-esteem, but no, she's painted, coiffed and gowned, placed above them all as a guidance figure and ultimately assuming a role of superiority in magically granting them the self-confidence to rise above their situation. It's dishonest. Life, our bodies and our minds simply do not work like that.

Money does, though, and brand awareness. And yes, both parties can be accused of this. Xtina got to reinvent the 'Dirrrty' version of herself with a serious ballad, just as Perry got to sing a clubworthy tune to try and get the gay community back on side after her unapologetic blunders. 'Firework' is more obviously cynical though, trying to crowbar serious issues into a jaunty soundtrack from an outsider's perspective. Gaga's 'Born This Way' did a similar thing, the difference being that that was worked more as a defiant call to arms than hurling a copy of Chicken Soup for the Soul at people in varying states of despair. 'Born This Way' and 'Beautiful' are, crucially, sung from a first-person perspective, placing empathy high on the agenda, not forgetting our problems with a big bowl of strawberry ice cream.

Following Ditto's criticism, Katy Perry said that it was "tacky" to criticise someone else's music. It's not. That's how progress is made. It's tacky to colonise the suffering of other people in a 2-D way in order to make money.

Poetry Parnassus and the Paradox of International Poetry

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Stone) — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 11:18:00 +0000

Today we have a guest article by Andrea T. Judge, the incoming reviews editor over at the Sidekick Books site. Take it away, Andrea:

It hasn’t been long since Poetry Parnassus. The event took place between the 26th of June and the 1st of July, as part of the Cultural Olympiads, and it brought together more than two-hundred poets from all over the world for readings and debates. The scale of the project, even in retrospect, is staggering.

The event having lasted a week, and myself being constrained by the nagging trifle of having a job, I was only able to attend the events on the weekend, which disqualifies me from writing a proper review. This is just as well, because what I am interested in discussing here is not Poetry Parnassus itself as much as some aspects (and problems) of international poetry as they emerged from the festival.

I should start by saying that I thought the field day was a resounding success. The organisers did a superb job in bringing together a group of diverse and fantastic poets, including some real stars (my jaw pretty much dropped when I saw Gioconda Belli on the roster). All of the readings I attended were very interesting, and those I didn’t sounded just as promising. As importantly, the event offered myriad opportunities to pick up books of international poetry and find out information about literature from abroad, often by speaking with the foreign artists and/or editors in person. Myself, I walked away with a collection of contemporary Polish poetry and a pamphlet by a Persian author, two books that I look forward to reading in the coming days. So even though my arguments later in this article may seem critical of the festival, my final position should be clear from the start: great job, and do it again as soon as possible.

With these indispensable disclaimers out of the way, I was a little puzzled by certain of the invitations, particularly in light of what they meant in an event that declared itself as primarily international. Being interested above all in the European poetry scene, I did not look into many of the poets from North America, South America, or Africa (I’m aware that these represented the majority of the festival’s readers and I must stress once more that this article does not intend to review the festival as a whole). What struck me about the selection of the European poets was the fact that so many of them were already international by default. The choices always seemed to fall on poets who were fluent in English, professional translators from or into English, and often having lived away from their home country.

The prime example of this was Ilya Kaminsky. When I entered the site of the event, I found a list of poets by nationality. I immediately scrolled down to the link for Russia, as I am head-over-heels in love with the contemporary poetry scene from this country, and I was linked to Kaminsky’s bio. I had never heard of him before and I am unfamiliar with his work. A little reading told me that he was born in Odessa (which is in Ukraine, not in Russia, and that country has not been Russian since the fall of the Soviet Union), that he moved to the United States when he was sixteen, and that he writes in English. Presently he is, I quote from the bio, “professor of Contemporary World Poetry in the Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing at the University of San Diego”.

I mean no disrespect to the man, but he doesn’t strike me as the quintessentially Russian poet. When interviewed by SJ Fowler for the festival, he spoke of Horace, Borges, and Whitman, and he answered the question “What are your thoughts on contemporary Russian poetry?” by discussing the merits of people like Mandelstam, Mayakovsky and Kharms, all of whom died decades before today’s most interesting Russian poets were even born (for a comparison, imagine answering a similar question on contemporary English poetry by talking of Yeats and Eliot). He also said, when asked about the extent to which he represents his country and culture, that: “Poets are not born in a country. They are born in childhood.” This may be true, but it skirts the important question of how being born in a particular country enriches, limits, colours or otherwise affects a poet’s work. This is how contemporary St Petersburg poet Darja Suchovej writes of buying a present for a friend (the translation is my own, and so is the transcription of the name, which I’m sure I messed up):

Recently the Ozegov vocabulary was released,
the last edition, there’s a dream,
acquiring it in some alley,
among other things because you can’t find a word
in the old one with either гз or жз; in the four
volumes of the eighties’ edition, likewise:
and in the older pages yet of the Pushkin-Tongue
vocabulary (four volumes in turn)
there isn’t flatiron, computer, refrigera-
tor, and distributor, and dialer,
nor even leader. But it’s clear with the xa, the нa, the e…
End of the quotes. We had some canapé. We ate
them, without thinking, together with vodka.

This is the type of uniquely national flavour which makes it so rewarding to investigate poetic scenes outside of our own, and it is unquestionably related to the environments where the artist was raised.

The case of other attendants was similar, if not quite as extreme. Elisa Biagini, from Italy, is a translator from English and an expert in American poetry. She has lived and taught in the US (though now she resides in Florence), and she writes in English as well as in Italian. Evelyn Schlag, from Austria, studied German and English literature and writes novels set in places like Quebec, where characters meet American poets like Elizabeth Bishop. Valérie Rouzeau, from France, is a famous translator of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. So is Eli Tolaretxipi, from Spain, except that her specialty is on Plath and Bishop rather than Plath and Hughes (in her interview she cites four writers/poets, two of whom wrote in English, one in Swedish and only one in Spanish, and answers a question about her national poetic identity by saying that “rather than a country a poet has a home which can be anywhere”, which, again, misses the opportunity). Ironically, the poet whom I most readily associated with a European culture was Ryoko Sekiguchi, who represented Japan, but who lives in Paris and is a major voice in French poetry (I assume she must have a certain status in Japan as well, but I only know her work in French).

This is not to slight any of the above poets, much less the event’s organisers. I am not suggesting that these artists are not representative of their countries or that they were poorly selected. Rather, the argument goes the other way round – firstly, and as Fowler’s interviews suggest, these are poets whom by virtue of their international background are more likely to reject or downplay the role of nationality in writing than to foreground it. There is nothing wrong with this in principle, but in context of this festival, it left me with a bit of an unsated hunger. How does the rise of Silvio Berlusconi’s televisual, hegemonic politics-of-communication affect the Italian language and what can poetry do about it? How did the Spanish language respond to and reflect the shift in the perception of homosexuality that took place in Spain over the last decade? What is the attitude of the Russian poetic scene towards all these new Romantic poets who are dying young, like Boris Rizhy, Igor Davletsin, or Dmitrij Bannikov? Could the increasingly academic nature of poetry in France somehow be reflective of the left-wing’s struggles to communicate with its base, thus favouring the rise of populist right-wing parties, and if so, what is to be done? These are all important questions which cannot simply be discarded by saying, as one poet did, that “a woman has no country” (this being a quote by Virginia Woolf, it was also rather wastefully made, which perhaps exemplifies my point – you don’t need to invite an international poet to London if you want to hear people quoting Woolf).

Secondly, to continue my argument, it may be objected that I am putting the cart before the horse. It is easier to communicate with poets from an international background, so naturally they would be the first to attend such events, right? This is true, but it only highlights the difficulty (and the real challenge) of dealing with international poetry – that it is interesting precisely to the extent that it is difficult to mediate with it. A festival such as Poetry Parnassus, despite some of its more grandiloquent terms (the “World Poetry Summit”? Seriously?) is, in this particular sense, hindered by its own size. While it is a great chance to meet individual foreign poets and be exposed to their work, it simultaneously risks projecting an anglocentric understanding of global poetry – which is the trap one must try to avoid. It is true that most poets today speak English anyway because, well, most people speak English. The question that is worth exploring, however, is what can be done with other languages that can’t be done with English. For all the commendable good will of the Parnassus, the great paradox of international poetry remains that the best people to ask are those who are most inapt to answer.

International Alternative Press Festival

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 00:14:00 +0000

This Saturday, The Camden School of Enlightenment is coming to the International Alternative Press Festival, at London's Conway Hall. The show's at 1:45 sharp and will include your dearly beloved editors, Jon and Kirsty, on the interface between poetry and computer games. It will also feature
Abi Palmer, with a new What's New, Pussycat? update on her favourite compulsive amazon.com cat calendar critic. Tony Hickson, former paparazzo, knife-thrower and star of Byker Grove, will offer true stories and lifestyle tips. I shall be talking about Sir Henry Newbolt: Victorian balladeer, naval weaponry designer and menage-a-trois-er.

The festival is on Saturday and Sunday 4th-5th August, and other spoken word events include

live storysketching
Listen Softly, an afternoon of storytelling with words and handmade fabrics, presented by Ceri May
left-field poetry collective Vintage Poison, maybe in collaboration with Michael Horovitz
Structo magazine's So Bad it's Good - Adventures in Terrible Writing

There will also be workshops on felt-making, set design, linoprinting and bookbinding. And then, of course, there are all the weird and wonderful comics and artworks that are the main point of the festival. Come and have fun!

August Writing Challenge on YPN

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Stone) — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 16:18:00 +0000

Back in April, I wrote a series of 15 simple formal ideas (some original, some derivative) with example pieces for National Poetry Writing Month. This month, the Young Poets Network is going to be publishing one every two days as a prompt for young writers, with an accompanying mini-anthology contest.

Day 1, together with a fuller explanation, is up here.

Poetry International Web Profile

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Stone) — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 15:41:00 +0000

This month, I'm featured on Poetry International Web alongside two other poets - Shazea Quraishi from Pakistan (now living in London), and the UK's Helen Ivory.

Here is the feature profile, in which I am generously described thusly:

His accomplishments include not only the writing of formal, voraciously experimental, precociously accomplished poetry but (along with his partner, Kirsten Irving) a boundary-breaking small magazine and a standard-setting small press – and an array of websites built by him to support all this activity.

They've also put up three poems: The Procedure (from School of Forgery), Eisenstangen (a version of Rilke's Der Panther) and Meat.

A short piece on Rimbaud's unhealthy influence on me

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Stone) — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 15:08:00 +0000

I was commissioned by new literary journal B O D Y to write a short article on a poem that has had a particular impact or influence on me/my writing. Here is the resulting article. I call Rimbaud a "sexy, amoral Tintin". With nits.

Ethiopian Poetry Event!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 22:50:00 +0000

This Sunday 15 July at 4pm, join us at the Ethiopian Community in Britain, 2A Lithos Road, London NW3 6EF for a celebration of Ethiopian poetry!

Hot on the heels of triumphant performances at Poetry Parnassus, a second chance to see the fantastic Lemn Sissay and Bewketu Seyum, as well as many other fantastic performers. Jon and me are joining in the fun too.

Hope to see you there!

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Stone) — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 17:53:00 +0000

Back in early June, I launched School of Forgery alongside John Clegg's Antler, also out from Salt. Owing to an unfortunate concatenation of events, John arrived at the launch with very few copies of his book, and I gallantly deferred the chance to take home my own so that he might sell as many as possible on the night.

Earlier this week my own copy finally turned up, and while I'd say I'm probably too close to John now for a full review to be carried out with the requisite lack of bias, I did want to take a moment to say how much I like Antler and how, even against the backdrop of a steady flow of distinctive and excellent poetry volumes onto my exhausted bookshelves, it stands out as a genuinely characterful debut.

As the blurb hints at, Clegg mixes "genuine and imaginary anthropology", and the join between those aspects of his work that are essentially tall tales or fabulation and those that the results of diligent research is practically invisible. So too is the transition between tightly controlled traditional form and ranging free verse, the former being done so softly and unostentatiously. A quick march through some of the titles (Moss, Nightgrass, Wounded Musk Ox, Kayaks, Meteor, Dill, Mosquito) reads like a sort of ingredients list - words as ancient elements, boiled down tinctures, excavated knucklebones and panned nuggets, bottled and labelled for cautious use in the creation of spells and medicines. Plus there's the over-arching sensation of the poet's joyous obsessiveness, like a child collecting shells or insects, in everything he writes about.

So yeah, yeah, I recommend it.

noreply@blogger.com (Jon Stone) — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 16:50:00 +0000

I have a new poem, Terrifying Angels, in the latest issue of Poetry Review. Following the departure of Fiona Sampson, who helmed the magazine for a number of years, the magazine is entering a phase of having guest editors at least until some time in 2013. I have to say, it already feels much fresher for it. This issue, edited by the estimable George Szirtes (he and I have briefly been on bad terms in the past but I've always admired both his poetry and his dedication to the cause), is themed around branching out to include poetries not comfortably included within the 'mainstream' bracket, hence the subtitle: 'mapping the delta'. Szirtes' introduction reflects my own feelings about where how I'd like to see future dialogues progress:

"But I know where the less explored areas are. They are less explored maybe because they seem more difficult, more the possession of one particular tribe ... I admire much about these 'tribes' and wanted to invite writers to open them up through a sense of shareable enthusiasm, to tell us why they matter and to show us not so much the fascination of the difficult, but the fascination of poetry as a whole: the full delta."

As well as some very good articles by Emily Critchley, Daljit Nagra and Adam Piette, there's a rich crop of poetry presented, incorporating a wider-than-usual variety of styles. It's always great to see poets we've published in (and first discovered through) Fuselit hitting the big time, so I'm particularly pleased that poems by Christian Ward and Joe Dresner have been included.

With the next two issues being edited by Charles Boyle of CB Editions, and Bernadine Evaristo respectively, I'm feeling very optimistic about the future of Britain's flagship poetry journal.