Contemporary Poetics Research Centre

Raul Zurita's 'INRI' Launch @ Birkbeck (Wed 3rd March 2010)

Booklaunch of Raul Zurita's book INRI, published by Marick Press.

Reading by Raul Zurita, with translation by William Rowe.

Followed by refreshments.

Date: Wednesday 3rd March,
Time: 8pm
Venue: The Council Room, Birkbeck College Main Building, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HX.

All Welcome

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.

Raul Zurita, winner of the Chilean National Poetry Prize, is one of the best known poets of Latin America. His work is part of a revolution in poetic language, that began in the 1970s and sought to find new forms of expression, radically different from those of Pablo Neruda. The challenge was to confront the contemporary epoch, with its particular forms of violence, including violence done to language.   INRI is distinctive in that it does not speak out of individual sorrow, though this is not missing from the text, but seeks, rather, a new space, out of which love might be asserted as prime human reality, a space which might give birth to a different type of society.
Zurita is the author of Purgatory (new translation published by California UP) and of Anteparadise, among many other books.

William Rowe is Anniversary Professor of Poetics at Birkbeck College, University of London, and his translations of Latin American poetry include 5 poets in the Oxford Book of Latin American Poetry in Translation and Cesar Vallejo Poemas (yt communication).

Raul Zurita  - INRI
Translated by William Rowe

Paperback,  Pages: 120 
ISBN 10: 1-934851-04-3,  ISBN 13: 978-1-934851-04-3 
USD $14.95 + Shipping

INRI responds to the need to find a language for an event that was kept hidden and excluded from official records in Chile: the fact that the bodies of the disappeared were thrown out of helicopters into the mouths of volcanoes and into the sea. In order to bring this event, that was neither seen nor heard, into language, Zurita invents a form and language capable of bringing it into the present. The one place where these unspeakable acts might be registered is in the landscape of Chile: the mountains, desert, and sea. There the event might begin to be touched, heard, and finally seen. When there are no places from which to speak, ‘the stones cry out’. INRI is written as poetry without regular lines or metre. In the tradition of Whitman or Ginsberg’s Howl, it works with long breaths and large blocks of meaning: intensities that overrun the usual measures of speech and syntax. To read it is to experience a strange force pulsing through the language, breaking apart its usual channels, and opening unseen and unheard zones.

http://www.marickpress.com/index.php?/inri

XING the Line Veer event (Wednesday 15 February 2012)

BECKY CREMIN & ALAN HALSEY @ XING THE LINE

Wednesday 15 February 2012

Upstairs at The Apple Tree, 45 Mount Pleasant, WC1X 0AE, 7:30-11:30pm
£5 waged, £3 unwaged

Becky Cremin & Alan Halsey

Becky will be reading from her new Veer book "LAY'D" and Alan will be launching his new Veer title "Even if only out of"

See:

http://www.bbk.ac.uk/cprc/publications/Veer_Publications/BurnerVeer010

http://www.bbk.ac.uk/cprc/publications/Veer_Publications/Veer046

Congressional Medal of Honour for Professor William Rowe

Professor William Rowe has been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honour by the President of the Peruvian Congress for his outstanding and widely recognised contribution to Peruvian culture as teacher, critic and translator.

Professor Rowe has produced classical works of criticism on the novels of Jose Maria Arguedas and the poetry of Cesar Vallejo. He has translated the work of many poets from Peru as well as from other Latin America countries. His recent poetry in English was collected in The Earth Has Been Destroyed (Veer Books, 2009).

William Rowe is the Anniversary Professor of Poetics in the Departments of Iberian and Latin American Studies and English and Humanities. This is a major recognition of his outstanding contribution to Latin American Studies.

MJ Weller's 'Beat generation Ballads' & Sean Bonney's 'Baudelaire in English (2nd Edition)' will be launched at The Blue Bus (15th March 2011)

Tuesday 15 March 2011

The Blue Bus is pleased to present a poetry event, with Sean Bonney and M J Weller.

This event wil feature the launch of MJ Weller's Beat generation Ballads and the 2nd edition of Sean Bonney's Baudelaire in English, both from Veer Books.

The Lamb (in the upstairs room), 94 Lamb’s Conduit Street, London WC1, 7:30pm

Admissions: £5 / £3 (concessions).

This is the forty-seventh event in THE BLUE BUS series.

MJ Weller is writer, artist, poet. As Mike Weller he is well known for his comic and zine art published last three decades 20C. Running own 'visual associations' imprint and Home'Baked Books press 2000s and twenty-ten Weller has produced printed chapbooks and digital bookworks Space Opera: The Artist’s Book, Madeline My Love in Death And Fancy, S Club 7 vs the Anti-Capitalists, Beowulf Cartoon and bookwork installation, Slow Fiction: twenty-three tales in a box. His HomeBaked poetics are dedicated to permanent artistic revision, making each title different in re-format or printed edition.

Sean Bonney has written, among other things, For the Administration (Crater, 2010), 5 after Rimbaud (Grasp, 2010), Document: Poems, Manifestos, Diagrams (Barque, 2009), Baudelaire in English (Veer, 2008) and Blade Pitch Control Unit (Salt, 2005). His long poem The Commons will be published later this year. He lives in London, and also at www.abandonedbuildings.blogspot.com

Voiceworks 2012 concert performance at Wigmore Hall (Wednesday 23 May 2012)

Voiceworks 2012 Performance

The culmination of the Voiceworks 2012 programme will be performed live at Wigmore Hall on Wednesday 23 May 2011 at 17.30.

The performance lasts 45 minutes and is free to attend – do come, listen and support.

This is the sixth year of this unique collaboration between poets from the Contemporary Poetics Research Centre at Birkbeck, and composers, singers and instrumentalists from Guildhall School of Music & Drama. New works for voice are created from a long process of exchange, improvisation and practice between October-May, and the resulting songs are a sign of the vibrancy and creative potential of a new generation of work. Many previous participants have gone on to collaborate on projects in Britain and internationally, or have developed their practice in new directions because of their Voiceworks experience, and it’s a chance to encounter their work first, here.

The performance is free to attend, but tickets need to be booked in advance (this is very simple to do, and costs nothing). 
See the Wigmore Hall website here for more information on booking. 

A recording of the Voiceworks 2012 concert will be subsequently published on the voiceworks.org.uk website.

This digital project, led from the CPRC Birkbeck with Guildhall colleagues and partners Wigmore Learning is funded by the AHRC.

Click here and here for more details

Voiceworks 2011 free concert at Wigmore Hall (Thursday 26 May 2011)

Voiceworks 2011 Performance

The culmination of the Voiceworks 2011 programme will be performed live at Wigmore Hall on Thursday 26 May 2011 at 18.00.

The performance lasts 45 minutes and is free to attend – do come, listen and support.

The performance is free to attend, but tickets need to be booked in advance (this is very simple to do, and costs nothing). 
See the Wigmore Hall website here for more information. 

A recording of the Voiceworks 2011 concert will be subsequently published on the voiceworks.org.uk website.

This digital project, led from the CPRC Birkbeck with Guildhall colleagues and partners Wigmore Learning is funded by the AHRC.

Click here for more details

Voiceworks 2010 concert performance (Thursday 20th May 2010 @ Wigmore Hall)

Voiceworks goes live!

The culmination of the Voiceworks 2010 programme will be live streamed from Wigmore Hall on Thursday 20 May at 18.00.
The performance lasts 45 minutes and is free to attend – do come, listen and support.

The performances are free to attend, but tickets need to be booked in advance (this is very simple to do, and costs nothing). 
See: http://www.wigmore-hall.org.uk/whats-on/productions/voiceworks-25340 for more information. 

The first live streaming of Voiceworks 2010, courtesy of the AHRC and Plushmusic, can be accessed at our new voiceworks.org.uk site which will launch on the same day. It will later be available by podcast. This digital project, led from CPRC with Guildhall colleagues and partners Wigmore Learning is funded by the AHRC.

Click here for more details

Voiceworks 2009 - Free concert at the Wigmore Hall (Thursday 7th May)

Voiceworks 2009 collaborations between the CPRC Birkbeck and Guildhall School of Music and Drama:

There will be a performance of the Voiceworks 2009 compositions in the Wigmore Hall on Thursday May 7th, 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-23314 for more information.

This is the third year of this collaboration between CPRC Birkbeck poets and Guildhall composers, singers and musicians.

Voiceworks 2009 participants are:

William Rowe & Francisco Coll Garcia
Sean Bonney & Jane Hebberd
Steve Willey & Edward Nesbit
Holly Pester & Joshua Kaye
Nancy Jones & Marcus Barcham-Stevens
Marianne Burton & Alastair Putt
Charlotte Newman & Aaron Holloway-Nahum

all welcome

VLAK in London (Friday 29 October 2010 @ BBK)

Time: 18:00 - 21:00 on 29 October 2010

Location: Birkbeck College, 32 Tavistock Square, London, United Kingdom

To mark the launch of the inaugural issue of VLAK MAGAZINE: CONTEMPORARY POETICS & THE ARTS, there will be an evening of wine & poetry at the Birkbeck College rooms on Tavistock Square, 29th of October, from 6pm, featuring readings by Allen Fisher, Caroline Bergvall, Carol Watts, Louis Armand, Sean Bonney, Holly Pester, Steve Willey, Richard Tipping, Lawrence Upton & Benedict Taylor ... & more!

Everyone welcome!

Venue map link here

Please visit the VLAK website for further details: www.vlakmagazine.com

To order: www.litterariapragensia.com ("journals")

Special Edition: VierSomes/4somes double launch at the Poetry Library (01 August 2012)

Veer Books will launch a new series of variously named publications featuring work by younger innovative writers, four at a time, called 'VierSomes' (or '4somes' or 'Quartets' ...)

This event will launch the series with readings from some of the featured authors:

Becky Cremin, Amy Evans, Edmund Hardy, Danny Hayward, Frances Kruk, slmendoza, Nat Raha

Date: 01 August 2012, 8:00pm

Venue: Poetry Library, Level 5, Royal Festival Hall, South Bank Centre, London SE1 8XX

Admission: FREE but to book a place guests must email specialedition@poetrylibrary.org.uk
(once these places have been filled, there may be spaces available on the night)

VierSome # 0 VierSome # 1

Edmund Hardy, Danny Hayward, Becky Cremin, Amy Evans,
slmendoza, Samuel Solomon Nat Raha, Frances Kruk

Conceptual Gestures - Vanessa Place - Birkbeck (Saturday 24 September 2011)

A reading by Vanessa Place

Saturday, Sept 24 2011 - 6.30pm32 Tavistock Square, WC1

Free, Open to all

The reading forms part of the first 'Conceptual Gestures' event organised by Carol Watts and Edmund Hardy at Birkbeck's Contemporary Poetics Research Centre

More information on Vanessa Place:

"Vanessa Place killed poetry." (Anon., via Twitter)

Vanessa Place writes poetry, prose and art criticism; she is also a criminal lawyer and co-director of Les Figues Press. Her most recent work is available in French as Exposé des Faits, and in English as Statement of Facts, Statement of the Case, and Argument (Blanc Press 2010-2011). A work of non-fiction, The Guilt Project: Rape, Morality and Law, was published by Other Press in 2010 and Notes on Conceptualisms, with Robert M. Fitterman, by Ugly Duckling Presse in 2009. A full bibliography is at EPC.

"Vanessa Place is writing terminal poetry." (Rae Armantrout)

Interview at "Intercapillary Space": http://www.intercapillaryspace.org/2011/08/that-quite-your-own-interview-with.

The new Veer journal ('veer off') is now available

015 Veer Journal 2 – 'veer off' - featuring the work of over 60 leading poets available now

Veer Publication 015 [ISSN: 1758-4140]
The second in the occasional Veer journal series focusing on unconforming writing,
veer off collects current writing from a selection of outstanding contemporary authors.
A4 size. 232 pages. October 2008. £6.00

veer off will be available at various upcoming CPRC events, and by post.

Veer Books launch at 'Crossing the Line' (October 2nd 2008)

XING THE LINE: Veer Booklaunch

Thursday 2nd October

Sean Bonney (Baudelaire in English), Johan de Wit (Up To You Munro), Piers Hugill ('Ways Through a Field': 13 Lyrics), Stephen Mooney (DCLP) and Jow Lindsey (OCTOPUS PUKE & other songs & tales, by Francis Crot et. al) will be reading from their recently published books, as well as from the new Bill Griffiths book (The Lion Man and others).

7.30 THE LEATHER EXCHANGE

15 Leathermarket Street, London Bridge, SE1 3HN.

£5 / £3

Veering to Berlin (Saturday 11 May 2013)

Veer Books reading and launch in Berlin, Germany

Sean Bonney, Ulli Freer, Aodán McCordle, mendoza, Stephen Mooney, Nat Raha and Will Rowe

and

Catherine Hales

St. Gaudy Café, Gaudystr. 1, 10437 Berlin

http://www.gaudycafe.com/

8 pm

Featuring the launch of the new Veer Book by Catherine Hales, feasible stratagems

Veer Publication 052 [ISBN: 978-1-907088-54-4]
Catherine Hales presents the extreme depletion of space and sense in the contemporary city by agents of capital. Her book also trusts the joy of the gaps in the order and breathes there. Out of these incalculable places an ‘us’ emerges. We are invited to move from perception to thought and back again, verifying the real environment, listening from inside the phrase to the music of the idea as it grasps where we are. (William Rowe)
229x152mm size. 68 pages. May 2013. £6.00

Entry free - donations welcome! Books will be on sale!

Veer Books shortlisted for the Michael Marks Publishers' Award for Poetry Pamphlets

Veer Books, coming out of the activities of the the Contemporary Poetics Research Centre (CPRC) Birkbeck, has been shortlisted for one of this year's Michael Marks Awards for Poetry Pamphlets!

Michael Marks Publishers’ Award

Books of 36 pages or less are where new poetry often first meets its audience – slim volumes allow readers to savour a concentrated gathering or carefully paced sequence of poems. Poetry pamphlets can be exquisitely designed, with striking visual qualities that form a strong part of the meaning of the book as a whole.

Small press publishers have been at the forefront of developing new audiences for poetry through such attractive and innovative publications. The publishers' shortlist announced by the British Library and Poetry Book Society (award for a UK publisher of poetry in pamphlet form, on the basis of their publishing programme in 2009) is:

• HappenStance Press
• Oystercatcher Press
• Templar Poetry
• Veer Books

Richard Price, Head of Modern British Collections at the British Library, commented:

“Pamphlets are the real thermometer of new poetry - these are the only UK-wide awards of their kind and this shortlist shows us the great range of approaches and ambition of modern poetry in Britain. If there’s a theme this year it’s the remix, the mash-up of history, time and place – like Bladerunner or Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, there’s a retro futurism in many of these which opens the door to non-poetry audiences without giving up any of the poetry. The shortlisted poets have all risen to the challenge of what a pamphlet can be, fusing both physical and visual form with poetry.”

Also announced is the shortlist for the Michael Marks Poetry Award:

• The Terrors, Tom Chivers (Nine Arches Press)
• The Titanic Café closes its doors and hits the rocks, David Hart (Nine Arches Press)
• Advice on Wearing Animal Prints, Selima Hill (Flarestack Poets)
• Devorgilla’s Bridge, Hugh McMillan (Roncadora Press)
• The Reluctant Vegetarian, Richard Moorhead (Oystercatcher Press)
• ballast: a remix, Nii Ayikwei Parkes (tall-lighthouse)

The winners of the two Awards will be announced and presented with cheques for £5,000 at a Readings and Awards Ceremony at the British Library from 6.30pm on 16 June 2010. The shortlisted poets will read from their work, the winners will be announced and the Award Ceremony will be followed by a reception to which the audience is invited.

For more information on the Michael Marks Awards for Poetry Pamphlets and to buy any of the shortlisted pamphlets, click here

The final announcement will take place during the Readings and Awards ceremony at the British Library from 6.30pm on Wednesday 16 June 2010. Tickets (£6 / £4 concessions) are on sale now from the British Library. Tickets can be booked online at http://boxoffice.bl.uk, over the phone +44 (0)1937 546 546 or in person at the British Library.

Michael Marks Awards for Poetry Pamphlets
The art of poetry - a compact universe in a pamphlet

The Michael Marks Awards for Poetry Pamphlets is presented by the British Library in partnership with the Poetry Book Society and with the generous support of the Michael Marks Charitable Trust. In their second year, the Awards celebrate the importance of the pamphlet form in introducing new poetry to readers in the internet age.