Blog

We recorded our very first live episode back on Tuesday 6 August in the Gorilla Shop in Edinburgh. Featuring highlights from the event which includes Daniel Bye performing from his one-man show The Price of Everything and discussing it and How to Occupy an Oil Rig. We feature an excerpt from Chris Dobrowolski‘s surprisingly mechanical show – ‘All Roads Lead to Rome’. And the amazing Lake Montgomery tells us a French tale of woe and performs two of her fantastic tracks for us. Featuring The Last Minute Orchestra who are Danny Keys, Leon, Cammy Sinclair and Tommy Pickles. With thanks for sound recording to 12 Gates to the City. Photo by Chris Scott.

We’ve got Edinburgh Festival fever on this week’s episode. Australian theatre maker Stuart Bowden talks about his tragicomic post-apocalyptic performance piece She Was Probably Not A Robot. We also feature the stomping literary Norwegian sounds of Ljodahått, who will be appeared at Jura Unbound at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in the Guardian Spiegeltent, as well as with our friends The Black Diamond Express . And we are very pleased to include an excerpt from Sara Zaltash‘s The Growing Act. Sara performed Tuul: “Sweetmud” in Edinburgh as part of the fantastic Peep / Anatomy experience at the Assembly George Square Gardens.

As part of their ongoing series of interviews, the chat I had recently with Forward Prize nominee Michael Symmons Roberts has been published in the Prairie Schooner magazine. In it we talk about the role of cliché, 9/11 and the human genome project. Don’t miss it.

Soon I will be in Australia! Shortly afterwards, I’ll be in a basement in Brisbane:

Brisbane Festival and QLD Poetry Festival present “Basement Late Nights”

The Basement at Metro Arts will be transformed into a subterranean bar with late-night gigs featuring immersive music experiences, chats with artists, poetry and happenings hosted by locals.

Venture down and you may just come across some festival artists relaxing or find yourself dancing in the dark with a bunch of strangers.

Wed 11 Sep, from 9.30pm – TONGUES OF FLAME hosted by Ghostboy

Join host David Stavanger aka Ghostboy hosting an evening of sensual sound and spoken word presented in association with Queensland Poetry Festival. Along with special guests: spoken word artist Eleanor Jackson, installation poet Ryan Van Winkle (Edinburgh), boho storyteller Adam Hadley (Mr Fibby), angular pop sharks The Stress of Leisure (duo mode) and the mysterious DJ Zaziz. Ghostboy will take the night on an interactive journey that will be part performance poetry theatre, part surrealist vaudeville, part dark comedy, all spoken weird. Once you enter, there is no turning back. Expect the unexpected. Let the words take flight.

What: Tongues of Flame; Brisbane Festival and QLD Poetry Festival

Where: Metro Arts, Basement, 109 Edwards St, Brisbane

When: Wednesday 11 September, 9.30pm-late

How Much: FREE

On Tuesday 10 September the good people at The Gods Cafe, Canberra will play host to Bendigo-based poet BN Oakman and myself on the ANU campus. A fine night of poetry will be had.

B N Oakman, formerly an academic economist, began writing poetry in 2006. His books now include In Defence of Hawaiian Shirts (Interactive Press, 2011) and two chapbooks.

What: Poetry at The Gods

Where: The Gods Café,  Arts Centre, Union Court, Australian National University, Canberra.

When: Tuesday 10 September, 8pm.

How Much: $10 / $5 conc.

I’ll be appearing in a few events in Brisbane (a few as part of the Brisbane Writers Festival) in September. If you’re in Queensland and fancy some poems, do come join us.

Reader-in-Residence presents COUPLET

The Lord Mayor’s Reader-in-Residence David Stavanger (Ghostboy) hosts two dynamic poetic voices in a new monthly performance event, as well as a “surprise guest” reading a poem from the library collection.

Friday 6 September 5:30–6:30pm, Brisbane Square Library

Award-winning Edinburgh-based poet & performer Ryan Van Winkle (Scotland) + musician & poet Luke Beesley (lead singer of New Archer). Presented in partnership with the Brisbane Writers Festival.

Special events/Author Talks 

Thursday 12th September, Brisbane Square Library

Commiserate is a monthly experiment in poetic collaboration.

August, 2013: Jane Flett

I asked Jane if she’d stay up late with me and write a poem. In my mind, we’d only send work to each other after midnight, perhaps a little tipsy. Of course, we broke the rules and, of course, it didn’t matter. The point was to connect again since Jane now lives in Berlin and I remain (mostly) in Edinburgh. It is strange how people you once saw every day turn into friends you see once a year. And it is a constant surprise to me (because I’m an idiot) – how people grow and talent evolves. Working in this way with Jane reminded me how far we’ve both come since meeting each other many years ago while working at The Forest. After years of sweating in kitchens and drunken reading tours and countless stupid photographs – it was a pleasure to work with Jane Flett, writer.

Night Vision

I want to be left alone
with you to wind
the garters of our once-told tales
and turn the sky like spades.

I am dead and dry inside
and you are moist as midnight
grass. Some star
always in ascension, some mars

boy always going down, it is five
o’clock somewhere so pour
me a fresh glass of glitter and ask
the bears to leave us be, to stop

clearing those soft furred throats.
To choke. It is dark / they’ve seen our fire
all the times I am not here
—a bag hangs high. So, okay

we’ll leave the bears. Okay, I’ll go in.
I’ll tidy my house. Post my letter.
Stand in the kitchen squinting

at the edifice of glass wondering
whether you plot to return or if
the dark is now your bedroom’s

keyhole / should I grasp my
night vision? Is inside
your room the soft centre of

acorn shells, fit for
my finger? I have forgotten
so many sunsets

so many breakfasts, so many
broken fasts at midnight, so many
rules, all the crosswords I’ve ever

tried to own. So many letters
saying yes
the ocean is deep, of course

you want to be outside
on a sunny day
you can find anything you need
in thrushes or rusted bins

but to get astride your sunny
day / I have to trek
six continents from here,

forsake the Pleiades and
combat the tin shards
of the night. The trail

to your door is measured in
fathoms. I enter by sinking
slow, into pressure and black.

Jane says:

For me, this poem started off as a long distance mash note to a friend: Hey. I miss you. Let’s sit up all night talking again about everything. But then it went all strange and unexpected. This is what I like most about writing when a poem is going well—the moments when ideas appear on the page that don’t feel like mine at all but still feel like they’re they only thing that could possibly come next. What? Where did all those bears come from? 

Of course, in collaboration this feeling is much, much greater. I was pushing the poem one way, Ryan was pulling it another, and I think somewhere in the gaps between our intentions, good things appeared. 

Bio:

Jane Flett is a philosopher, cellist, and seamstress of most fetching stories. Her poetry features in Salt’s Best British Poetry 2012 and is available as a chapbook, Quick, to the Hothouse, from dancing girl press. Her fiction—which Tom Robbins described as “among the most exciting things I’ve read since social networking crippled the Language Wheel”—has been commissioned for BBC Radio, awarded the SBT New Writer Award, and performed at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

More from Commiserate 2013

Horrible news! Dan Gorman, Stevie Patterson and myself are back in action as The Naughty Boys, the famous and very serious music and poetry trio, coming to the basement of the Forest Café this Friday night, 16 August, kicking off at the very naughty time of 11pm.

The Naughty Boys are:  *DanGorman on keys and computer loop. * Stevie Paterson on keys and percussion noises. * Ryan Van Winkle — Spoken Words.

What: Naughty Boys is REAL

Where: Forest Down, Forest Café, 141 Lauriston Place, Edinburgh

When: 11pm, Friday 16 August

How Much: FREE.

From Friday 16 – Monday 18 August I’ll be back collaborating with Dan Gorman on our Viewmaster project right at the start of the Forest Fringe, which this year is operating out of the Blue Drill Hall, 30-38 Dalmeny St, Edinburgh.

Viewmaster with Dan Gorman

A personal slide-show for your eyes and ears only. You choose the journey and Ryan Van Winkle will bring you on a sometimes surprising, sometime surreal, tour accompanied by the ambient soundtrack of Dan Gorman. Performances are under 10 minutes. A rare chance to travel, listen and pause in one small space.

What: Viewmaster

Where: Blue Drill Hall, 30-38 Dalmeny St, Edinburgh, EH6 8RG.

When: Friday 16-Monday 19 August, 11am-1pm & 3.45-5.30pm

On Tuesday 13 August I’ll have the privilege of talking to the Scottish artist Robert Montgomery as part of the Parley series at the Edinburgh Art Festival. Robert’s work is in the situationist tradition, meaning art that is placed in unexpected public spaces for maximum effect, questioning the language and voice of private commercial interests on public streets.

Even better, the event will take place inside a huge architectural artwork by Krijn de Koning in Edinburgh College of Art’s Sculpture Court!

What: Parley: Robert Montgomery in Conversation with Ryan Van Winkle

Where: Edinburgh College of Art, 74 Lauriston Place, EH3 9DF.

When: Tuesday 13 August, 6-7pm

How Much: FREE, Book tickets