Events
Programme 2009/2010
Thursday 1st October 2009
Veer Books launch at 'Crossing the Line'
7.30, The Leather Exchange, Leathermarket Street, London Bridge, London SE1 3HN
(click here for directions), £5, £3.
Books to be launched by Tom White (Old Sense), Out To Lunch (Swift Blab Residue), Jon Clay (Here 1-24), James Harvey (Temporary Structures), James Wilkes (Reviews) and Jow Lindsey (OCTOPUS PUKE & other songs & tales, by Francis Crot et. al)
See the Veer Books page for publication details.
Readers: Out To Lunch, Jon Clay, James Harvey, James Wilkes, and Antony John
Wednesday 7th October 2009
Susan Howe and David Grubbs Seminar @ BBK
3-5 pm, Birkbeck College, B35 Birkbeck Main Building, Torrington Square, London WC1
Susan Howe and David Grubbs will speak about the ideas that have nourished their collaboration as poet and musician. Howe and Grubbs have released two CDs, Thiefth (2005) and Souls of the Labadie Tract (2006), works which take the encounter between poetry and music into new territory. Each will speak for around 25 minutes and the second hour will be devoted to questions and discussion.
Presented jointly by the Poetics Research Group at Royal Holloway, University of London and Birkbeck Contemporary Poetics Research Centre. Their appearances in London are supported by the Humanities and Arts Research Centre, the Faculty of Arts and the English Department at Royal Holloway, University of London, and Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities.
Thursday 8th October 2009
Susan Howe and David Grubbs Performance @ the South Bank Centre
Purcell Room, South Bank Centre
Thursday 8 October 2009, 7.45pm
£10.00 (some concession tickets also available)
"Howe and Grubbs take the encounter between poetry and sound into entirely new territory. They will perform separately and together."
Presented jointly by the Poetics Research Group at Royal Holloway, University of London and Birkbeck Contemporary Poetics Research Centre. Their appearances in London are supported by the Humanities and Arts Research Centre, the Faculty of Arts and the English Department at Royal Holloway, University of London, and Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities.
October 2009
Voiceworks, the Wigmore Hall Song Project, is an annual collaboration between Birkbeck and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and the Wigmore Hall. Postgraduate poets (both MA and PhD) working through the CPRC and postgraduate composers from the Guildhall School collaborate to produce songs that are performed at the Wigmore Hall by professional singers and musicians as part of the main repertoire.
This year's programme begins in October 2009.
Wednesday 21st October 2009
Launch: Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry
7:30 pm, Room B29, Birkbeck College, Main Building, Malet St.
There will be speeches and discussion of the journal, as well as an opportunity for readers and contributors to the journal to meet with editorial board members.
Speakers:
Caroline Bergvall, Poet and performer, Arts and Humanities Research Council Fellow in the Creative and Performing Arts at the University of Southampton
Andrea Brady, Poet, Lecturer, Department of English, Queen Mary College
Robert Hampson, Poet, Professor, Department of English, Royal Holloway
Scott Thurston and Robert Sheppard, Editors, Journal of Innovative British and Irish Poetry
Followed by discussion and drinks. All Welcome.
see http://www.gylphi.co.uk/poetry for more information.
Wednesday 28th October 2009
The TALKSTALKSTALKS series runs periodically on Wednesdays at Birkbeck, and is curated by Professor Robert Hampson at RHUL.
7:30 pm, Room B29, Birkbeck College Main Building.
The series resumes on Wednesday 28th October, welcoming Jonathan Kauphmann. ‘Work in Progress’.
Drawing on his current studies of acoustics and notation, composer and improvising soloist Styles J. Kauphmann will question whether language and music aren't fundamentally immiscible, and the results of their collaboration inevitable failures.
Kauphmann was raised in Botswana and the United Kingdom, and educated at Cambridge and in Berlin.
Examples of his work are available at http://www.stylesjkauphmann.org
Free Entry, All Welcome
Wednesday 11th November 2009
The TALKSTALKSTALKS series runs periodically on Wednesdays at Birkbeck, and is curated by Professor Robert Hampson at RHUL.
7:30 pm, Room B29, Birkbeck Main Building, Torrington Square, WC1
The Centre welcomes Alison Croggon, 'Rewriting The Black Monk: texts in space'.
Alison will be talking about her work in the theatre and her collaboration with actors, amongst other things.
Sponsored by the Austrailian Council for the Arts.
Free Entry, All Welcome
Friday 13th & Saturday 14th November 2009
Veer Books will be manning a stall at the upcoming Small Publishers Fair 2009 at the Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WC1
Poetry presses include Colin Sackett, Coracle, Essence, Leafe/Bamboo, Moschatel, Reality Street, Shearsman, Veer & West House.
Exhibition of vintage NY mimeos curated by Les Coleman & John Janssen
At the fair this year we will be launching 5 new Veer Books:
018 Piers Hugill – ‘Il canzoniere’
021 Tony Trehy – ‘Space The Soldier Who Died For Perspective’
022 William Rowe – ‘The Earth Has Been Destroyed’
023 Antony John – ‘now than it used to be, but in the past’
024 Aodán McCardle, Piers Hugill, Stephen Mooney – ‘Shuddered’
We will also be presenting a reading at the Small Publishers Fair event on Sat Nov 14th, from 5:30 pm. Joining us will be Torque Press, launching Caroline Bergvall's Cropper, and Carol Watts' this is red.
Reading will be: Carol Watts, William Rowe, Tony Trehy, Piers Hugill, Antony John, and Aodán McCardle, with readings from Caroline Bergvall's Cropper.
See the Veer Books page for publication details.
Wednesday 25th November 2009
The TALKSTALKSTALKS series runs periodically on Wednesdays at Birkbeck, and is curated by Professor Robert Hampson at RHUL.
7:30 pm, Room B29, Birkbeck Main Building, Torrington Square, WC1
The Centre welcomes Kristen Kreider and James O'Leary, ‘Video Shakkei: live drawing and borrowed landscape'.
Free Entry, All Welcome
Wednesday 9th December 2009
The TALKSTALKSTALKS series runs periodically on Wednesdays at Birkbeck, and is curated by Professor Robert Hampson at RHUL.
7:30 pm, Room 351, Birkbeck College Main Building, Torrington Square, WC1
The Centre welcomes Ryan Omonde and Becky Cremin, 'How To Talk'.
Free Entry, All Welcome
Wednesday 16th December 2009
Veer Books Launch / Writers Forum Celebration @ BBK
19:30, The Council Room, Birkbeck College Main Building, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HX.
3 new Veer Books to be launched:
017 Maggie O'Sullivan – ‘ALTO - London Poems 1975-1984’
019 Johan de Wit – ‘No Hand Signals: the invisibility of language in poetry’
025 Jennifer Pike Cobbing – ‘SCRUNCH’
All three poets have had strong links to Writers Forum in the past and the present - they will be joined by Writers Forum Co-Convenor Adrian Clarke for this event.
Readers: Adrian Clarke, Jenny Cobbing, Johan de Wit, and Maggie O'Sullivan.
Directions: the Birkbeck Main Building is sandwiched between Malet Street and Torrington Square, and the main entrance is on the Torrington Square side, at the Senate House end of the square/plaza.
Click this link for a map.
All Welcome
Contact Veer Books at veerbooks@gmail.com for more details.
Tuesday 2nd February 2010
Readings 5 webjournal goes online
see http://www.bbk.ac.uk/readings/issues/issue5
Wednesday 10th February 2009
The TALKSTALKSTALKS series runs periodically on Wednesdays at Birkbeck, and is curated by Professor Robert Hampson at RHUL.
7:30 pm, Room 401, 30 Russell Square (Dept of English & Humanities building), Birkbeck College.
Amy Cutler will speak on 'Poetry and Cartography'
Free Entry, All Welcome
Wednesday 17h February 2010
Launch: Bill Griffiths: Collected Earlier Poems (1966-80)
Published by Reality Street in association with West House Books
7.30pm, Birkbeck College, University of London in Room 203, Clore Management Centre (Torrington Square, facing Birkbeck main entrance)
featuring a reading of the complete Cycles by Sean Bonney, Ken Edwards, Allen Fisher, Alan Halsey, Geraldine Monk & Maggie O'Sullivan
All welcome - Free Entry
Wednesday 24th February 2010
The TALKSTALKSTALKS series runs periodically on Wednesdays at Birkbeck, and is curated by Professor Robert Hampson at RHUL.
The Centre welcomes Simon Smith, who will talk on 'The Fragment'
7:30 pm, Room 401, 30 Russell Square (Dept of English & Humanities building), Birkbeck College.
Free Entry, All Welcome
Wednesday 3rd March 2010
Booklaunch & Reading: Raul Zurita's 'INRI', translated by William Rowe
with readings by Raul Zurita and William Rowe, followed by refreshments
8:00 pm, The Council Room, Birkbeck College Main Building, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HX.
All Welcome
See here for more details
Monday 29th March 2010
Reading: the Centre welcomes Gilbert Adair and Robert Hampson.
7.00 pm, Room G01, Clore Management Centre, Birkbeck College, Torrington Square, WC1.
This event will see the launch of Robert Hampson's new publication from Veer Books:
Veer 028 Robert Hampson - 'an explanation of colours'
Gilbert Adair's Sable Smoke will be published by Veer Books later in 2010
All welcome - free entry
Wednesday 19th May 2010
Reading & Talk: The Centre welcomes Mark Weiss, US poet translator and editor of the celebrated new anthology The Whole Island: Six Decades of Cuban Poetry.
Details of his work can be found at: http://www.wildhoneypress.com/featured/weiss/weiss.htm, http://www.shearsman.com/pages/books/ebooks/ebooks_pdfs/weiss_db.pdf, http://molossus.wordpress.com/2009/11/11/three-poems-from-cuba/#comment-124
The Whole Island: Six Decades of Cuban Poetry (University of California Press): "Not since the 1982 publication of Paul Auster's Random House Book of Twentieth Century French Poetry has a bilingual anthology so effectively broadened the sense of poetic terrain outside the United States and also created a superb collection of foreign poems in English. There is nothing else like it." John Palattella in The Nation http://go.ucpress.edu/WholeIsland
7.30 pm, Room G01, Clore Management Centre, Birkbeck College, Torrington Square, WC1.
All welcome - free entry
Thursday 20th May 2010
Voiceworks 2010 collaborations between the CPRC Birkbeck and Guildhall School of Music and Drama
There will be a performance of the Voiceworks 2010 compositions in the Wigmore Hall on Thursday May 20th, at 18:00 (for 45 minutes) - this is free to attend, but will require that tickets are booked in advance (this is very simple to do, and again, costs nothing).
See: http://www.wigmore-hall.org.uk/whats-on/productions/voiceworks-25340 for more information.
This is the fourth year of this collaboration between CPRC Birkbeck poets and Guildhall composers, singers and instrumentalists. Voiceworks 2010 participants are:
Francisco Coll Garcia, Albert Pellicer, Iria Perestrelo
Antonia Barnett-McIntosh, Emma Bennett, Adam Crockatt
David Moore, Ben Gwalchmai, Luke Tracey
Raymond Yiu, Kim Patrick, Luis Gomes, Clément Dionet
Patrick Brennan, James Wilkes, Robert Elibay-Hartog
Nick Scott, Frances Kruk, Lucy Hall
Matthew Mendez, Holly Pester, Victor Sicard
Wednesday 9th & Thursday 10th June 2010
Steve McCaffery and Karen Mac Cormack coming to London
Wednesday 9th June 2010
Reading: The CPRC Birkbeck welcomes Steve McCaffery and Karen Mac Cormack
7.00 pm, with a reading of new work by both poets.
Room 417, Malet Street main building, Bloomsbury, London WC1E 7HX (entrance on Torrington Sqr)
See map link below:
http://www.streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?x=529810&y=182106&z=110&sv=torrington+square&st=6&tl=Map+of+Torrington+Square,+London,+WC1e&searchp=ids.srf&mapp=map.srf
All welcome - free entry
Thursday 10th June 2010
TALKTALKTALK: The Department of English, RHUL welcomes Steve McCaffery and Karen Mac Cormack speaking on what's new in poetry.
Mac Cormack: 'Taking Reality by Surprise'
McCaffery: a performance of his essay 'Zarathrustran 'Pataphysics''
Room G3, 11 Bedford Square, RHUL, 6.45-8.45 pm
See map link below:
http://www.streetmap.co.uk/map.srfx=529831&y=181669&z=110&sv=Bedford+Square&st=6&tl=Map+of+Bedford+Square,+London,+WC1b&searchp=ids.srf&mapp=map.srf
All welcome - free entry
The TALKSTALKSTALKS series runs periodically and is curated by Professor Robert Hampson at RHUL.
Wednesday 14th - Friday 16th July 2010
Conference: Women's Innovative Poetry & Cross-Genre Work
Co-hosted by the CPRC Birkbeck and the University of Greenwich.
Venue: University of Greenwich
Confirmed writers and speakers so far:
Caroline Bergvall, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Andrea Brady, Lee Ann Brown, Elizabeth-Jane Burnett, Mairead Byrne, Jennifer Cooke, Corina Copp, Emily Critchley, Jean Day, Carrie Etter, Steve Evans, Robert Hampson, Edmund Hardy, Susana Gardner, Lisa Jarnot, Daniel Kane, Christine Kennedy, Frances Kruk, Francesca Lisette, Marianne Morris, Jennifer Moxley, Redell Olsen, Holly Pester, Frances Presley, Luke Roberts, Lisa Robertson, Sophie Robinson, Rebecca Rosier, Lisa Samuels, Eleni Sikelianos, Juliana Spahr, Zoë Skoulding, Harriet Tarlo, Fiona Templeton, Cathy Wagner, Samantha Walton, Carol Watts, Sara Wintz
Admission is free (donations requested).
Tuesday 20th July 2010
Veer Books Launch: Jeff Hilson's 'In The Assarts' (Veer 030) at the Blue Bus.
Blue Bus: reading by Carol Watts and Jeff Hilson at The Lamb, 94 Lamb’s Conduit Street, London WC1, in the upstairs room, from 7.30. Admissions: £5 / £3 (concessions). This is the fortieth event in THE BLUE BUS series.
Wednesday 21st July 2010
Talk/Reading: David Buuck 'Bay Area Sneaks: Writing/Framing/Space'
7.30 pm, The Council Room, Malet Street main building, Bloomsbury, London WC1E 7HX (entrance on Torrington Sqr)
David Buuck lives in Oakland, California, where he teaches & is a freelance editor & critic. He is the founder of BARGE - the Bay Area Research Group in Enviro-aesthetics, and the co-founder and editor of Tripwire, a journal of poetics. Recent publications include THE SHUNT (Palm Press, 2009), 17 Reasons Why (Mission17 Gallery, 2009), Buried Treasure Island: a detour of the future (Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 2008), SITE/CITE/CITY (BARGE, 2008), Paranoia Agent (OMG, 2007), among others. More materials available at buuckbarge.wordpress.com and davidbuuck.com/barge
Saturday 24th July 2010
Veer Books Launch: Out To Lunch 'Smooch Tentet Resolve' (Veer 026) & Cris Paul 'stenia cultus handbook' (Veer 026) @ Birkbeck
The Council Room, Birkbeck College Main Building, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HX.
7.00 pm
Free Entry. All Welcome
Tuesday 17th August 2010
Veer Books Launch: Wayne Clements 'Clerical Work' (Veer 031) at The Blue Bus.
The Blue Bus is pleased to present a poetry reading by Adrian Clarke, Wayne Clements and Michael Zand, at The Lamb, 94 Lamb’s Conduit Street, London WC1, in the upstairs room, from 7.30.
Admissions: £5 / £3 (concessions). This is the forty-first event in THE BLUE BUS series.
Monday 23rd August 2010
Reading: the Centre welcomes Robert Fitterman and Kim Rosenfield
7.30 pm, The Council Room, Birkbeck College Main Building, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HX.
This reading by two outstandingly interesting American poets is not to be missed.
All welcome - voluntary contribution: £5 waged and £3 unwaged
Tuesday 14th September 2010
Veer Books Launch: Harry Gilonis' 'eye-blink' (Veer 032) at The Blue Bus.
The Blue Bus is pleased to present a poetry reading by Ken Edwards and Harry Gilonis, at The Lamb, 94 Lamb’s Conduit Street, London WC1, in the upstairs room, on Tuesday 14th September, from 7.30. Admissions: £5 / £3 (concessions). This is the forty-second event in THE BLUE BUS series.
Wednesday 15th September 2010
A Celebration of Anna Mendelssohn
There will be a celebration of the life and poetry of Anna Mendelssohn/Grace Lake on 15 September, 6-9 pm, to be held in the Council Room in Birkbeck College, Torrington Square, London WC1. The event is jointly hosted by Birkbeck Poetics Centre and The Centre for Modernist Studies at Sussex, and has been organised with her family and friends, as well as those interested in her poetry.
There will be readings from Anna’s work and other poems from among others Ian Patterson, Sean Bonney, Barry Schwabsky, Frances Presley, Chloe Harries, and Jane Liddell-King, and words from those who knew her, including members of her family and Peter Riley, who worked to save her extraordinary archive after her death.
The event is open to all, and if you’d like to read please let either Sara Crangle (skcrangle@gmail.com) or Carol Watts know (c.watts@bbk.ac.uk), so that we can plan the evening with room for everyone. Also do drop us a line if attending, so we have a sense of the numbers for refreshment. If anyone has any images of artwork or photos of Anna that we can receive in jpeg form, that would also be great – we’ll display them on the evening.
Hope you can join us to celebrate the work of an astonishing poet.