You Must Write As If Your Life Depended On It

Thu 18 Mar: SHAD THAMES, BROKEN WHARF
by Chris McCabe
with Bleeding Heart Narrative and Jack Wake-Walker
Introduced by Iain Sinclair

The history of the Docklands is that of a city building upwards, from the monstrous bunkers of the docks themselves to the glass pillars at Canary Wharf. Whenever the means of profit-making have changed, Docklands has always been prescient and protean in its survival instincts. The success, and failure, of the current financial centre echo the creation of the original docks: control of local communities for global trading, the hegemony of private investors and monolithic architectural statements of presence.

Set in a pub that has stood on the site since the sixteenth century, Shad Thames, Broken Wharf eavesdrops on a conversation between three characters – Echo, a middle-aged woman who has lived her life in the area; Blaise, a northerner who finds resonances with the more familiar docks at Liverpool; and the gregarious landlord, a Londoner with ‘the knowledge’. Breaking into the dialogue, The Restructure is a sinister, all-knowing Public Service Announcement with ‘advice’ to share with anyone who’ll listen…

Shad Thames, Broken Wharf is a newly commissioned work by acclaimed poet Chris McCabe that spans centuries of changes across the Docklands, allowing past ghosts to be heard above the white noise of the polemical present. With accompanying tipsy folk melodies from Bleeding Heart Narrative’s Bartokian piano, strings, synths and sample set, and film from Jack Wake-Walker, Shad Thames, Broken Wharf resonates with what the Docklands might mean. Cult London author, poet and filmmaker Iain Sinclair introduces the performance with a special reading.

Performed by Tracey Wilkinson, Luke McEwen, Chris McCabe and Paul Henderson.

A London Word Festival Commission

chris-mccabe.blogspot.com
bleedingheartnarrative.wordpress.com
www.iainsinclair.org.uk

Jamboree ⋅ £8 adv / £10 door ⋅ 8pm
Jamboree
Cable Street Studios | 566 Cable Street | Limehouse| E1W 3HB
www.myspace.com/jamboreemembersclub


Sun 28 Mar: LEAFCUTTER JOHN: BRIGGFLATTS REWIRED
+ Peter Finch + MacGillivray + Hannah Silva

“Brag, sweet tenor bull…”

Intrepidly inventive folk, jazz and electronic musical inventor Leafcutter John decodes epic Modernist poem Briggflatts for the digital century in a brand new commission.

Briggflatts Rewired takes Basil Bunting’s extraordinary and intensely musical poem as the starting point for a new, electronically-enhanced composition. In an event that explores the interplay between sound, voice and textuality, Leafcutter John is joined by acclaimed Welsh poet and performer Peter Finch, haunting Highland musician MacGillivray and startlingly effervescent wordsmith Hannah Silva.

Born in 1900, Basil Bunting was imprisoned as a conscientious objector, lived in Persia as a British spy in the 40s and later worked as a journalist in his native North East. Briggflatts, a poetic autobiography which celebrates the culture and language of Northumbria, was published in 1966 and belatedly announced Bunting as one of the great Modernist poets alongside T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound.

A member of Mercury-nominated avant-jazz collective Polar Bear, Leafcutter John is a multi-talented musician, songwriter, remixer and artist whose work marries the best cadences of folk with the expressive utility of samples, mixing and field recordings. He has released four albums, the latest of which is The Forest and the Sea (Staubgold Records), and builds many of his own electronic instruments from scratch.

Peter Finch is a Welsh writer and critic who is famed for his declamatory poetry performances. An expert on the arcane and obscure corners of twentieth-century poetry, dada and the history of the small press, in the 60s and 70s he toured with sound poet Bob Cobbing. More recently he is known for psychogeographic investigations of Cardiff. He has published more than twenty-five books of poetry.

MacGillivray sings haunting tales from the frontier, of wolves and hunters, love lost in the wilderness. A favourite on BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction and The Verb, her album Wolf is inspired by the strange lurch of Gaelic ‘lining out’, drawing on words by Robert Burns and Hugh MacDiarmid. MacGillivray has supported The Fall and performed alongside the writers Iain Sinclair, Brian Catling and Alan Moore.

Hannah Silva is a writer and performer whose distinctive style combines the physicality of theatre with energetic, fast-paced poetry. Her recent works include You Said/I Said with percussionist Alexis Kirke; Panopticon, a darkly humourous investigation of language, belonging and Britishness; and Boat on the Water, a poetry/dance/theatre performance set on a yacht in Plymouth.

Briggflatts Rewired is a London Word Festival Commission and is presented with the kind permission of The Basil Bunting Estate, Bloodaxe Books and Stream Records

www.leafcutterjohn.com
www.peterfinch.co.uk
www.myspace.com/macgillivray
www.hannahsilva.co.uk
Stoke Newington International Airport ⋅ £6.50 adv / £8.50 door ⋅ 7pm
Stoke Newington International Airport
Unit F | 1-15 Leswin Place | Stoke Newington | N16 7NJ
www.stkinternational.co.uk

Labels: Bleeding Heart Narrative, Chris McCabe, Diverse Deeds, Hannah Silva, Iaian Sinclair, London Word festival, Peter Finch, reading

For Great Works - I am doing a lot of refitting and updating at a technical level. The vessel is in dry dock, as it were. Having installed a search ability, I realise that some of the pages are unreadable by the search engine, as I put in when I first started no-robots statements, for no really good reason I can think of now. These early pages that still remain are also in a rather bad HTML that doesn't always display as I thought it would. So I'm redoing all of these in good XHTML, with consistent use of CSS and full accessibility (as much as the demands of matching poets' layouts allows this!). There is also a major blunder I made on the bulk of my existing XHTML pages that needs urgent correction, out of embarrassment rather than necessity I think, but it could impair access. For all this I am planning to use Dreamweaver, which I need therefore to get to grips with. This should basically partially industrialise actually making some of these corrections, but will require care also as it can give rise to pretty crap code too. So this will all take a while ...

Then to redo The Links (which should be a simpler, more batch process though via Dreamweaver). Modernpoetry.org.uk can at this point be restructured and redesigned.

Finally, to work on the next issue. My anxiety over the "all-male" issue seems to have been unwarranted - not a problem. I'm not sure therefore about the mooted all-female issue I promised to make amends, if amends aren't necessary - but I would love more contributions from female poets.

Amos Weisz's writing will figure in the next issue in any case, and I am also drawing up a volume which Great Works will publish (yes, on paper, print-on-demand) of a selection of his poems and prose. His mother is negotiating publication of his translations, including his Celan translations (which have Celan's son's approval), through a New York small press recommended by Suhrkamp Verlag.

I was expressing interest in various collaborative projects at the end of last year - I think I will have very little time for quite a while on these. I also have increased family responsibilities, which will be ongoing.

I will though write something on my considered response to, yes, the academicisation of poetry and The Journal. Also on micro-publishing - ie stuff turned out in tragically small editions, a trend I also don't feel happy with.

Diverse Deeds will almost certainly rest, possibly permanently. The formula, of an welcoming and inclusive event, combining innovative poetry with a little innovative music to encourage a sense of performance, in a relaxing and flexible venue, trying to build up an audience of both those already plugged into the innovative poetry networks and as many as possible who just thought it looked interesting (and by golly it is!), is a good one, which will prove a sure fire winner at some time. Cafe Oto, having given me crap scheduling, is no longer interested. My doubts about restarting elsewhere relate to, firstly my own sense of relief at not carrying on (and regret too!), and secondly the feeling that it really needs some bunch of cool young dudes/dudettes to get it going, certainly not a redundant granddad from Bishops Stortford.

Labels: Amos Weisz, Cafe Oto, Diverse Deeds, Great Works, Modernpoetry.org.uk, Peter Philpott, plans, update

(1) poem for P. Philpott, read at Xmasing the Nine, 3/12/09

A momentary lapse
of rain
A south westerly breeze
probably.
Dear Caroline, it's 2009
& Rosier couldn't read
tonight & so I
can't read. What's
commitment to 2000 &
niners anyway?

Re-Openned: A Hilson
rendition of Last Christmas,
The same Hilson of
Hilson's School of Poetry:
No Divas Allowed
(Dear Caroline, sorry, No Divas
Allowed)

There are no stars in LNDN
There are no stars under
clouds there are no
stars over Cathedral
City lights
But there are stars they
are just not our stars
they are very far stars.


A momentary break in
the clouds.
Stars.

& rain.

& Bergval, in a rocketship to our hearts


(2) The Voice of Harry Godwin at Diverse Deeds, December 16, 2009

Labels: Crossing the Line, Diverse Deeds, Harry Godwin

Wednesday, December 16: Angela Gardner + the voice of Harry Godwin + Mendoza + Nat Raha + Michael Zand
(note slight change of line-up)

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 event links the visiting Australian poet and artist Angela Gardner with readings and performances from a group of young and innovative London poets.

Angela Gardner is an Australian poet with a prize-winning reputation in her own country: 2006 Arts Queensland Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize for Parts of Speech, (University of Queensland Press, 2007) and 2004 Bauhinia/Idiom 23 Prize). Her new book, Views of the Hudson has been published this year in the UK by Shearsman. She already has an international status as a visual artist. Her poetry is often highly visual, always quick, inventive and engaging. She also edits an online poetry magazine, foam:e, and jointly runs Light-trap Press, publishing artists’ books. This is her last reading in Europe before she returns to Australia.

Harry Godwin, Mendoza, Nat Raha and Michael Zand are all poets in their early 20s now (or until recently) based in London. They are part of the exciting innovative poetry scene based around creative writing courses in London and poetry events like Openned, Crossing the Line and Sundays at the Oto. They have so far only had small pamphlets published, mainly from Harry Godwin’s Arthur Shilling Press, or appeared in small magazines and websites. They are playful, inventive and wonderfully original, with strong elements of performance in how they present their poetry. There some fine photos of all of them (+ other fine folks!) on Marcus Slease's blog, after the recent Crossing the Line event.

More information on:

• www.myspace.com/diversedeeds


• Facebook Group - actually not much use yet as F*c*book is failing to allow me to make links

Labels: Cafe Oto, contemporary British poetry, Diverse Deeds, reading

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

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

explore innovative poetry and music in performance

roughly monthly at Café Oto, 18-22 Ashwin Street, Dalston, London E8 3DL

doors open at 7.30; start at 8.00; end by 10.00; £6 (£4 concessions) entry

The inaugural event for this new series of poetry and music performance events matches Sean Bonney and John James, two of the most exciting and energetic readers/performers of innovative poetry, with the new improvising duo, Grapefruits.

Sean Bonney has acquired a totally justified reputation as a poet and performer. His work is urban, political and therefore angry. The diverse voices of the streets and alleys of London come through in glorious waves of creative language, affirming through its rejection al nice acceptances. “Like getting a telephone call from the barricades, the Paris Commune.” That important! Most recent books: Baudelaire in English (Veer Books, 2008) & Document: Poems, Diagrams, Manifestos July 7th 2005 – June 27th 2007 (Barque Press, 2009). Sean Bonney runs yt communication with Frances Kruk and lives in London.

Grapefruits is the improvisatory duo of Oliver Barrett (Bleeding Heart Narrative) on cello, and Max Bondi (multi-instrumentalist and Tartaruga Records founder) on piano. Occasionally utilising a variety of percussion and electronics alongside the core of cello and piano, Grapefruits create extended improvisations that drag fragments of melody from swirls of sound and texture. building up cities of sound to live within: compelling listening.

John James has been writing poetry since the 1960s. You can get most of his work in his Collected Poems (Salt, 2002). John James is a legendary poetry performer: direct, energetic and totally alive. His writing combines quick witted and ever alert verbal invention with a masterful relaxation and humour, and political and cultural passion. Sometimes urban, sometimes rural – always full of actual, delightful and obstreperous human life. This a rare London reading from the Cambridge-based poet.

“John James is an extremely enjoyable and charismatic poet. His work is like a vigorous breath of fresh air, full of variety, humour and surprise. It has a strong sense of lyricism and energy, a striking mixture of the experimental and the immediate that brings to mind the work of Mayakovsky or the New York poets of the 1950s and 60s.” The Guardian.

for further information:

• MySpace Page for Diverse Deeds


• Facebook Group: Diverse Deeds

Labels: Cafe Oto, Diverse Deeds, reading