SJ Fowler in collaboration with Provokief (piano) performing my poem 'Sincerely' - published in the anthology Herbarium(Capsule Press, 2011, ed. James Wilkes) as the entry for Gravel Root. Filmed during Poetry Parnassus.
Last summer I travelled to Stuttgart on an invitation from Dr Jessica Bundschuh of the Department of English Literatures and Cultures at The University of Stuttgart, where over Friday 27 and Saturday 28 June 2025 I led a series of generative poetry workshop sessions in partnership with Cork-based poet Molly Twomey for around 60 participants composed of University students and 5th grade students from Dillmann Gymnasium. The title of our collaborative workshop project was 'The Mediated Self' and it consisted of three individually-led sessions each: mine focusing on sampling, collaborative writing, ekphrasis, collaging, and related poetics. My session 'Find a Pop Icon' in particular, spread over two days, was the source of much discussion, amusement, tumult and creative engagement from the students. My reading of the 132-line long collaborative, communal 'exquisite corpse' poem in its entirety, which I set for the class at the outset and which was contributed to b...
Though I sometimes indulge in them - see below - I’m not a huge fan of end-of-year lists. Some things take longer to sink in and their significance understood than others. I don't just mean the appreciation of volumes of poetry or films or music, but also events in one’s life, writing or otherwise. It’s not always possible to readily ascribe value or meaning to what has been experienced. More to the point, turns of years can operate as welcome breathers and a chance to step back and see the wood instead of constantly just individual trees. Flitting from task to task and from project to project can have the effect of relegating to the backs of our minds what we really are doing it all for. What this writing business is all about. One or two potent disappointments notwithstanding, 2012 was good to me. It's seen a rise in appreciation of what I do; there was a new book, reception of which has been positive; I did many readings and performances, and took part in discussions, pr...
My collaboration with Steven J Fowler 'The New War Machine: A Miniature Poetry Play' is included in the second volume of Steven's selected collaborations, Nemeses , just published with HVTN Press. Nemeses "brings together over 50 collaborations and collaborators, placing poems and prose alongside musical scores, diaries, sculptures, films, photographs, scripts and more. It explores not only the grand potential for collaboration as an innovative, generative, playful and profound practice, but also aims to expand what is possible when sharing the live upon the page." Steven writes : "It is always in compiling Nemeses that I really realised how many collaborations I have undertaken in the five year period the book covers. It presents excerpts of full collections alongside works made specifically for Nemeses . It draws from full feature films, exhibitions, commissions, installations and poems made for performances around the world. The book is finished with...
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