We’ve got a very special counterculture laser for you today, as Kieran Hurley explores the rave culture of the 90s in his piece Beats, his coming-of-age story exploring Johnno’s first pharmaceutical experience rebellion, apathy, and the irresistable power of gathered youth, and discusses eloquently his fascination with politicisation of the subculture, and the contemporary government’s attempts to legislate it into submission.
We also got to catch up with the legendary Jim Haynes, who you may know as the Paris-based superhost or being deeply involved in some of Edinburgh’s best-loved institutions like the Traverse theatre, but on a super windy day at the last Edinburgh Book Festival we talked about sexual liberation and freedom of the press in the 60s with his Amsterdam published magazine Suck. He had tea with Salvador Dali. I repeat: he had tea with Salvador Dali.
And but also we get the chance to hear two tracks from East Cost songwriter Paul Buck’s new EP The Ipswich Prisoner, which you can get on the eMusic, and the iTunes, the entire thing for just over two bucks. Because the internet is magical. And you can get it all right here by clicking the happy little triangle.
‘Commiserate’ is an experiment in poetic collaboration born out of SJ Fowler’s Enemies project. As part of his reading series at Rich Mix, he invited Kirsten Irving and I to collaborate.
March, 2013: Kirsten Irving
Kirsten says: I loved collaborating with Ryan. His initial suggestion of a title fired up plenty of ideas, and the process was pretty organic. It’s actually the most enjoyment I’ve had from writing in ages – it had the feel of a versus game, which really fitted the theme – and I’d love to do it again. The final piece was a mixture of pathos, strangeness and dark humour, reflecting both of our personalities while taking us both off at an angle. You need these kinds of collaboration to refresh your work and remind you that poetry can be massively enjoyable and surprising.
When we performed live Kirsten brought a mournful cello backing track and nemesis slide show:
“Notes to a Nemesis”
Notes to a Nemesis
And yet, I want to see you again if only
to wrap in my arms if only to hear one last breath, your eyes green as shame before closing
*
How I worried when I met you that my third ear, my garish legs would fast become a gripshift for those neat-nailed hands of yours.
*
a smile is a shield and like a shield can cover or casket. Our minds contain space and oceans dark but opposite
*
if you miss the tear you miss the point
*
So come to me when the clouds crawl in like spectral sloths when the pyrex cracks in the oven. Meat. We are nothing but meat; hot on the table, cold on the ground.
*
Where were you when the police came? When they took me away in standard issue cuffs and made me fill forms as though I were not a day-god.
*
Back when I was engaged with Frost, it was easy to imagine an ice palace a globe of glass and snow delicate and easy to drop what now, but rain, what now but a globe of fire and ash?
*
Back. Back, I say, and the worst thing is that you obey.
*
Maybe you have found yourself and no longer fight as I do. Maybe I should help the trapped blackbird who, having hopped under my bike cover, is frantic and sevenbird, all a-seizure, dashing his fine wings against pitiless plastic.
*
Onward to the parade let the wild rumpus begin the sad, constant march never ends, oh the broken hearted living the red balloon sagging in a corner, what is heavier the human heart or the bald tires of a dozen useless humvees?
*
You burned my house down
*
I’d do it again. I’d hold my hand to the fire’s black heart as though I were commanding it. And when you came back, maybe you’d think I was commanding it.
*
Twisted dishcloth of my belly! Half-buried bulb of my jaw! I would wrench off the furless front of me and guddle out all the kinked guts like yards and yards of chewed calamari if it would help. If it would change me.
*
Wasn’t I a painter blue canal, red smear of breast, a wall of black you could fall into a dot of light on the horizon a train shuddering loose, a light you wouldn’t hope to see.
*
And wasn’t I once a meteor’s harp, tucked in its megafire arm nook, bombing towards this planet in my jazzy silver suit?
*
How I wish for my old stance:
the conch shell of my chest, feet shoulder-width apart and chin tilted up, catching adulation and hatred, soaking it all up under my slashed-in grin?
But it will not come again, like the off-course shrike blown to British marshes en route to Russia, who will leave us tensing behind binoculars, as soon as he has gathered his thoughts like bright little stones.
*
And the guy who was the most popular, sexiest man alive in 1889, in 1949? No one knows who the fuck that was. My wings bright and wide between the water tower and the moon and how many looked up, who shuddered the name Vulture? I was not put down by the blue-eyed, by the pale yoga smile if I must go, I go in the arms of the one with the black cloak, the one with sharpened fin, the one I called brother, he who we all must serve. he I served well.
*
As I served you. Sit with me, do, as the crow of night tucks into the bones of the day and I will show you just how well I work. Even now, tingling with ambition.
—
Ryan says: I have long been amazed by Kirsten’s work. I first encountered her as an editor of the ambitious, pocket-sized, magazine Fuselit circa 2005. Since then, she (and editor Jon Stone) have built an invigorating publishing house specializing in curious team-ups, highly original anthologies & multi-media dazzle. (Seriously, check out Sidekick Books if only for a beautiful, affordable, micro-anthology). She is as inventive an editor as she is a poet. Her début collection ‘Never Never Come Back‘ was published by Salt in 2012 and, as we do here, melds the tragic and ludicrous. Often during this experiment, she kicked my ass and caught my breath.
So much great stuff to update you on today, as we delve headlong into a brand new Culture Laser and embark on a shiny globetrotting Bookmarked with the Scottish Book Trust.
In the Laserland we explore the world of molecular mixology on this week’s episode with Paul Tvaroh of Lounge Bohemia, a place in Shoreditch where possession of a suit is grounds for summary ejection, and a place where some really excellent art and cocktails can be sampled with equal gusto. We talk Paul’s theatrical and playful creations, including a very unique shoe-based drink and a cocktail served in a hollowed out Bible “that smells like an old church and tastes like a priest – or vice versa”. We also feature the track MaraGnawa by Gol from their new album Strange Times – support them on Pledge Music, and listen to it right right here!
In the Bookmarked corner, I had the pleasure of talking to Gavin Francis , author of Empire Antarctica, about ice, silence and Emperor Penguins; we headed off to Mesopotamia for the Erbil Literature Festival in Kurdistan to hear from young Iraqi writer Sabrin Qadi and her our friend Krystelle Bamford; closer to home, I had a great chat with Glasgow crime author Caro Ramsay about her new book The Blood of Crows, which The Guardian called a “bleak, black and brilliant” read. So much great stuff to check out! And all at the click of a little triangle.
Really exciting news! The good people at Reel Festivals have announced their full programme of events for Reel Iraq 2013, which runs from 21-25 March all across the UK, including dates for the calendars of the citizens of London, Dumfries, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Stirling. There’s a huge amount going on, with short film showings, music, poetry and writing workshops, really worth making a note of and coming along to support some of the best artists Iraq has to share with us.
We’re hitting the road in a massive poetic convoy with our Found in Translation team, featuring Ghareeb Iskander, Sabreen Kadhim, Zahir Mousa, and Awezan Nouri, our friends John Glenday, Jen Hadfield, William Letford, and Krystelle Bamford, plus so many massively talented UK-based poets joining us along the way, including George Szirtes, Tom Pow, Vicki Feaver, Miriam Gamble and Joe Dunthorne, to name a scant few. It’s going to be one week-long celebration of poems and the humans who write them, we’ll be exhausted and euphoric and we invite you to do likewise.
PLUS if you can make it up to Raploch Community Campus on Monday 25th, we’re throwing an intensely unique Golden Hour to bring this year’s Reel Iraq to a close, featuring all the aforementioned Iraqi and Scottish poets, short films, and music from Billy Liar, Hailey Beavis and others. You will pause, ponder, clap and sing along.
Can’t wait to get all this underway, can’t wait to see you there, and to put you in the mood, here’s Reel Festival’s very own theatrical trailer.
Lately I had the extreme pleasure of chatting about theatre and monsters with Nicholas Rawling of Paper Cinema, a company I cannot gush about sufficiently enthusiastically, or describe in sufficiently elaborate terms. Their latest production is The Odyssey, which is on at Battersea Arts Centre until 6 March 2013, and if for whatever reason you’re not totally excited about an ‘exploded comic book’ take on Odysseus’ voyage already, we get a chance to hear some of the amazing music from the show performed by Christopher Reed, Hazel Mills, Imogen Charleston and Quinta. We also feature ‘The Secret Life of a Second Hand Copy of ee cumming’s 100 Selected Poems’ from artist, playwright, producer and top-notch reader Deborah Pearson. It will make the hairs on your neck do a fun dance.
We have a great podcast for you, alls you gotta do is click the right-pointing triangle below.
In this week’s Multicoloured Coloured Culture Laser I sat down with Leonora Olmi and Lydia Beilby of Screen Bandita, a collective where previously abandoned film can be given new lease of life through its contextual re-imagination and exposure to a new audience. They curated a bunch of the Cameo’s double features, made a series of awesome Super 8 movies, and now encompasses old and charmingly obsolete formats of all stripes. They rule and have a great grasp of unusual cinematic sensibilities and a very particular kind of nostalgia for film that will bust your mind. Plus our friend, the magnificent William Letford, reads us a wintery poem giving us something to think about in the snow with the slow traffic and life-saving mugs of tea. I have been places with William whose work is often observant, funny and wise. And finally, we feature two tracks from the new album The Mule and The Elephant from The Payroll Union, these guys are deep and play super loud when they get together, which is something I love as much as their keen take on Americana. Get their album at the bandcamp like nowish. It’s all here, hit the play button and let us light up your ears.
As mentioned last month, ‘Commiserate’ is an experiment in poetic collaboration born out of SJ Fowler’s inspiring Enemies project. As I’ll be down in London’s Rich Mix on the 9th as part of his ‘Comrades IV‘ line up I thought I’d share one of the five collaborations between SJ & I. Dig into Fowler’s ‘Enemies’ site and I’ll be sure to let you know when his big book of collaborations comes out in September. If the names associated with the project are any indication, it will be a dynamic, challenging publication featuring cutting edge work from throughout Europe.
February, 2013: SJ Fowler
Fowler says: ‘The Burbs is a collaborative writing through of the city space that is not the centre, and so these poems, dotted across the globe, are neither periphery or core. The goal was to leave behind who wrote what, and become poetically annulled, as is appropriate in a celebration of the places people only go to live’.
The Poem Says:
Bled Suburbs
if there is a date to make
what if I arrive injured?
swinging a cane with pleasure, singing
this is all coming together
sighing
a student of Hebrew
a Scot
delayed at the threshold by the English
rewriting / a marsh
that kills an army
blue cross
dark red beef cross family feelings
let’s abandon the discussion in
favour of poetry that is comedy
that is not song
that is what time slows down to
stick a pin in meat
friends
I have a yellow heart
an apple
a burned-out physic Dodge
I can psychic drive
38 dollars and
desert desert desert
a wilderness of mirrors
in my left pocket, no
right pocket, rain
where my right pocket should be
You are right
to ask questions. You are left
turn at the light. I have one
thing I never talk about
another I can’t stop breathing.
What is a name
if you don’t know the eye,
the color red?
so I’m trained now
steven did you know, that even if you
have bad knees and can crouch down,
you can actually lean your torso
forwards from your hips? it’s called
bending over ooo tiny rabbit, i see your moon
but your health is crucial
to the inflatable you can’t resist
puffing air into your chest and pushing
into rain and I only remember
my mother’s maiden name
when they ask, steven did you hear
the shaking keeps you steady
you should know
RVW says: I was genuinely flattered when SJ asked if we could make a sequence of poems together. I had no idea what to expect or if I would totally embarrass myself / ourselves in this process. Not only was Fowler generous in his encouragement but he also seemed fearless in a way that was very freeing. I could toss out insane non-sequitors, drop an F-bomb, shift the poem radically and know that he’d run with it. Further, I think we had a genuine conversation though the work – we both stole from our discussions or emails and it was heartening to see Fowler use my own words against me. I can’t say enough kind things about this avant-garde provacatour. I remain inspired by his work and his commitment to the form.
In the past few weeks I’ve had the huge privilege of going out to Iraq with the excellent people at the Erbil Literature Festival and Reel Festivals. While in Erbil and Shaqlawa in the Kurdish region of Iraq we played and worked with 8 Scottish and Iraqi poets – whose work you’ll see here in the UK in March – but in the meantime here are a few blog posts to whet your appetite and to give you an idea of what Reel Festivals is all about. Click on the headline for the full feature!
In less than a day our troupe of Scottish and Iraqi poets will converge here in Erbil before bussing over to Shaqlawa in the foothills of the Safeen mountains. There, not unlike everywhere in Western Europe, there will be snow.
On the journey here, the snow was our enemy but soon, I hope, it will be our friend. Weather conditions meant Dan Gorman and I were waylaid in Vienna. While kicking around the airport Dan met a couple of stranded Iraqis on their way home to Oslo. When they heard where we were headed one exclaimed, “Shaqlawa makes me insane!” This has become our motto.
I first met Lukman Derky in Damascus in November, 2010. At the time he was running a spoken word event so rare, courageous, and new that it was covered in The New York Timesbefore Syria began meriting headlines for the worst reasons. A cultural cowboy, Derky’s Bayt al-Qasid (House of Poetry) was doing something many of us take for granted – bringing people together to perform and play. In that dimly lit basement bar where secret police likely hid in plain sight – people spoke freely.
Hello folks! I’m back in Scotland after a fantastic trip around Iraq with the wonderful people at Reel Festivals, and I’m kicking off the old reading schedule at one of Edinburgh’s acest pubs, the Waverley, for the newest edition of the Caesura reading series. It happens on the second Friday of every month and is totally free.
If you come along you’ll hear work from fine fellow, Sandy Hutchison, and our friends Sean Cartwright and Lila Matsumoto. Should be a cracking night! Hope to see you there.
On Saturday February 9 I’ll be joining our friends at the Rich Mix Arts Centre in London Town for the first event for avant garde poet SJ Fowler’s project Enemies. It’s a collaborative poetry project, a multidisciplinary programme of events, exhibitions and publications that takes a bonesaw to the skull of poetry and lets the butterflies out.
I’ll be joining some immensely talented writers, including Sidekick Books‘ Kirsty Irving with whom I collaborated, plus all of these literary chaps:
Chris McCabe & Tom Jenks
George Szirtes & Carol Watts
Peter Jaeger & Tim Atkins
James Wilkes & Christodoulos Makris
Stephen Emmerson & Lucy Harvest Clarke
Alex Niven & Joe Kennedy
Roddy Lumsden & Carrie Etter
Todd Swift & Paul Perry
Marek Kazmierski & Stephen Watts
Sophie Mayer & Astrid Alben
Holly Pester & Daniel Rourke
Tamarin Norwood & tba
I’m really looking forward to performing with these guys, it’s a super exciting opportunity to do something that’s a complete departure from the norm as far as poetry goes, it will make your weekend a thing of beauty. Hope to see you there!
We’ve got a very special counterculture laser for you today, as Kieran Hurley explores the rave culture of the 90s in his piece Beats, his coming-of-age story exploring Johnno’s first pharmaceutical experience rebellion, apathy, and the irresistable power of gathered youth, and discusses eloquently his fascination with politicisation of the subculture, and the contemporary government’s attempts to legislate it into submission.
So much great stuff to update you on today, as we delve headlong into a brand new 
In the Bookmarked corner, I had the pleasure of talking to 
