You Must Write As If Your Life Depended On It

Finally produced, after innumerable aeons seem to have passed, is the latest Great Works. The new material is from:

Niall Quinn     three texts
Mark Goodwin & Nikki Clayton     Of Died
Andrew Taylor     four poems
Daniel Andersson     two poems
Nick Wayte     two poems
Mark Cobley     seven poems
Simon Howard     two sequences
Aidan Semmens     three poems
Michael Egan     five poems
A A Walker     two Terminations
Richard Parker     QS
Antony John     three poems
Adam Fieled     from Apparition Poems
Mark Cunningham     five poems
James Mc Laughlin     seven poems
Ross Leese     two poems
Christopher Barnes     six poems
Les Wicks     five poems
Alex Houen     two poems
Nicolas Spicer     five poems
Graham Burchell     five poems
Chris Brownsword     two poems
Stuart Kenyon     Silent Return
Iain Britton     five poems
Thomas Mulhall     nine poems
Cliff Yates     five poems
Nathan Thompson     four lipogram sonnets from A Haunting
Jon Clay     five poems from Here
Alasdair Paterson     from On the Governing of Empires
Tony Cullen     two poems
Steven Ruel     nine texts
William Garvin     four poems
James Price     six poems & three drawings
Simon J Charlton     The Distance of Dreams
James Davies     four poems
Gareth Durasow     four poems
Paul A Green     Astral FM & three short texts
Mike Ruddick     BOUNDARIES
Johan de Wit     ten Statements
Mark Hall     Into the Pits (In the Dirt of the Postlyric: A Collaborative Cycle : Part 5)
Connie Beauchamp     THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE GAME (In the Dirt of the Postlyric: A Collaborative Cycle : Part 6)
(+ latest update of Pistol Tree Poems)

"The perceptive reader will soon notice that all the poets with new writing in this issue appear to be male. This is largely, but not wholly, an accidental circumstance" is how my text on the homepage begins. I shall shortly write at a more length here about the issues I feel circulate around my unease (and also my ease) over all this.

Or you can personally upbraid me remorselessly tomorrow at Diverse Deeds, introducing Francesca Lisette, Sophie Robinson & Roshi reading & performing at Cafe Oto, 18-22 Ashwin Street, Dalston, London E8 3DL. Doors open at 7.30; start at 8.00; end by 10.00; entry £6 (£4 concessions).

Labels: Cafe Oto, Diverse Deeds, Great Works, rationale, Roshi, update

First, apologies if you've already picked up this information, but I need to keep pushing out the message:

Change of Line Up for December 1

as a consequence of Eríin Moure's recent illness:

Tuesday, December 1: Francesca Lisette + Sophie Robinson + Roshi

Café Oto, 18-22 Ashwin Street, Dalston, London E8 3DL.
doors open at 7.30; start at 8.00; end by 10.00; entry £6 (£4 concessions).

This new series of poetry and music performance events continues with three young innovative female artists. They each take up and push the boundaries of lyricism into something rich and strange.

Francesca Lisette is the young poet responsible for the Chlorine readings in Brighton. She is a fierce and powerful poet, full of original, delightful and frightening collocations of language and a melody desperately holding itself together despite the strain. Francesca Lisette is currently studying at the University of Sussex. Her work has appeared in Axolotl and Invisibly Tight Institutional Outer Flanks Dub (Verb) Glorious National High Violence. Her poem Tarorchid is forthcoming from Grasp Press.

Sophie Robinson combines highly original and effective performance techniques with powerful and moving linguistic lyricism cut in with a mastery of media practice. Her work has been included in the important anthologies The Reality Street Book of Sonnets (Reality Street, 2008) and Voice Recognition: 21 Poets for the 21st Century (Bloodaxe, 2009). Her new book a was published by Les Figues Press earlier this year. She has run creative writing workshops for both children and adults in the UK and Italy, and has read and performed in the USA and Ireland as well as frequently in this country.

Roshi is an exponent of “stunningly beautiful Welsh-Iranian torch song electronica“ says Mixmag. Born in Wales to Iranian parents, Roshi Nasehi is a singer-writer who presents her own evocative songs alongside sometimes quite radical interpretations of the Iranian songs she was brought up listening to. Her songs reflect her origins, influences and experiences in a personal and unique way accompanied by unusual piano or keyboard arrangements – they are reflective, melodic and quirky – her voice airy and tender but possessed of an inner power. When she interprets Iranian song it is in a personal style bringing a contemporary twist combined with an authentic understanding of context and language.

Roshi, with her band, or alone at the keyboard is a regular and welcome live performer especially in London, developing a loyal following. She has a new CD coming out in October, The Sky and The Caspian Sea (with Pars Radio, her band), of both original and traditional Iranian songs. She has performed on Radio 3’s The Verb poetry show, and at Diverse Deeds’ predecessor, Sundays at the Oto.

Diverse Deeds MySpace and the Facebook Group will be fully updated over the next couple of days.

Labels: Cafe Oto, Caroline Bergvall, Diverse Deeds, Erin Moure, reading, updates

this is the writing of a man
who has a problem with visions
(i.e. none)
the arhythmical structure is down to stress
this writing has not been dashed
off in two minutes
in fact I think it took him a very long time to do
most of the words involve fluctuations of press
take the words
professional
soldier
little
this indicates someone burning the canal
at both ends
(which takes an awful lot of oil)
someone under a great deal of pressure
there are many mistakes
could it be the writing of a man who is simply not
very good at spelling
the runes are transposed
see where he’s set down two i’s
each with two dots
this is the act of a man who has visionary problems

Labels: Richard Makin

(1) Alarmingly positive review by Peter Gillies of Are We Not Drawn ... on Stride website.

(2) I can also flag up my participation in the project in their own words, curated by John Clark, with an exhibition of "words and objects written and made in response to works of art", at Bank Street Gallery in Sheffield.

Labels: Are We Not Drawn, in their own words, review

Both the Diverse Deeds Facebook Group and MySpace now have full details posted of the December 1 performance by Caroline Bergvall, Erín Moure and Roshi. The Diverse Deeds Facebook Group now has a set of links posted to online material by and about all three performers; on MySpace they are more integrated into the text (though not as many links used).

Labels: Caroline Bergvall, Diverse Deeds, Erin Moure, reading, Roshi