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In one fascinating conversation, Singaporean poet Alvin Pang discusses language identity, Singapore literature and poetic practice with at the StAnza 2013 poetry festival. Alvin reads his poems and a selection from his anthology TUMASIK: Contemporary Writing from Singapore. Alvin has a great sense of humour, a marvelous reading voice, and shares some razor-sharp perspectives on the political power of both his poetry and its playfulness. Elsewhere, he talks about how Seamus Heaney influenced his work, his grandmother’s deadly Cantonese aphorisms and he reads a poem of his written in the distinctive unofficial language of Singapore, Singlish, the existence of which, he argues, has huge potential political power. I learned a lot, and if you click the play button, I just know you will too.

My poems “There is No Library for What I Know of Books”, “Untitled (Ristovic)” and “Opinions, Not Facts” have all been published by the handsome 3:AM Magazine. They involve travel, making out, fights, books & hypothetical sex (is there any other kind?).

The site features writing of many stripes, and you can while away many a wistful hour reading artists’ thoughts on a great many topics. It is humbling company, and I urge you to take your computing device for a spin around the 3:AM poetry section.

Exciting news! This May I’m heading to continental Europe to join our friends Zoë Skoulding, Alan Holmes and the good people at Literature Across Frontiers for a joint English/Czech reading. If you’re in Prague this Spring/Summer come and join us!

Literature Across Frontiers

Tuesday 14/5/2013, 20:00 hrs

Presented by Alexandra Büchler in Czech and English
Divus (South Wing), Bubenská 1, Praha 7
Literature Across Frontiers presents two poets from Britain known for taking innovative approaches to performing poetry using multimedia, new technology, and theatre settings. Zoë Skoulding’s performance features sound art and photographs by Alan Holmes, with recordings of her poetry in Czech translation. Ryan van Winkle, an American settled in Edinburgh, makes poetry into theatre and uses video clips, podcasts and other ways of communicating with audiences.

Hope to see you there!

On Tuesday 23 April (which is only WORLD BOOK NIGHT) I’ll have the great pleasure of chairing an evening with Scottish novelist, poet, writer, musician and all round good guy Andrew Greig at Edinburgh’s own Blackhall Library. Andrew is a marvellous writer whose recent play Found at Sea had a sell-out run at the Traverse Theatre and whose upcoming novel Fair Helen will be launched at the Edinburgh Festival this summer.

Andrew will be reading from his latest work & we’ll be chatting about his books, poems, career and upcoming releases. It’s going to be great fun and we’ll all have a merry old time.

What: Andrew Greig

Where: Blackhall Library, 56 Hillhouse Rd, Edinburgh, Midlothian EH4 5EG

When: Tuesday 23 April, 6.30pm

How Much: Free!

Hope to see y’all there!

At the Edinburgh International Science Festival we took the time to sit down and talk with Peter Lovatt (aka Dr Dance) to discuss the importance of improvisation for creativity and the science of dance. In a really cool conversation we get some of Peter’s tips for improvisation (for example, wherever you go, look for one new or unexpected thing) and he shares his amazing story of how he taught himself to read at the age of 22, how a whole world of meaning opened up to him, and how language skills are damaged, learned and recovered through dance. If you want to find out more, check out his TED talk, and if that all seems terribly prosiac, we also feature a great song to dance to, the Banana Song from Bobok.

In this edition of the Culture Laser we talk with playwright Jo Clifford about Spanish theatre, particularly her translation of Pedro Calderón de la Barca, becoming a performer and how being a trans* woman has influenced her writing and informed her cultural views. Jo says, “I’m not a male playwright, I’m not a female playwright, I’m a transsexual woman playwright”. We had a fascinating discussion about the dangers of writing, cultural misogyny, the power of adaptation, the power that theatre can have over an audience (and a playwright!). You can find out a whole lot more about Jo on her website! We also feature the track ‘Won’t Wait’ from Turtle Lamone’s album Bedroom Walls.

Click the tiny triangle for a fantastic half hour of words.

Today I’ve got some great news for all y’all who’ve been following our podcasts! The World Wide Poetry Studio is my new blog series for the Prairie Schooner magazine. In it, we’ll be featuring some of my favourite and most interesting poets in conversation from around the world. The first installment features one of my true literary loves, the brilliant poet, critic, and artist Mary Ruefle. Follow the link to visit the Prairie Schooner and to see how Mary ‘recognises the knock.’ There will be more of these throughout the year.

Glasgow’s Outskirts Festival is back for its second year in Platform, Easterhouse, and I am joining them. Outskirts celebrates art that crosses boundaries, blurs the lines between disciplines and salutes those artists who thrive on the edges, and got huge praise from all and sundry for their inaugural show last year.

This time round I’ll be reading some poems, and later in the evening putting my conversational skills to work as host/interrogator for journalist, novelist and comedian Rob Newman. Rob is a really talented writer and an ardent ecologist (which we love), he’ll be talking about his new book The Trade Secret, published by our friends at Cargo, and I’ll be posing him the tough questions, like “what is the secret of the trade”.

If that weren’t enough, the day-long festival features music from A Hawk and a Hacksaw, The Crying Lion and Frist Frugt, performances from Sonata for a Man and a Boy, Xana Marwick – You Suffer but Why, plus some excellent installations and exhibitions that will give you pause then blow your mind. See you there.

What: Platform presents: Outskirts Festival 2013

When: Saturday 20 April, 3.30pm-10pm. There’s a bus from Mono Café to Platform at 2.30, and one back at 10, for a pleasant £4 round trip. (I’m on about 6.45 and in conversation with Rob about 8pm)

Where: Platform, The Bridge, 1000 Westerhouse Road, Glasgow, G34 9JW. Platform has a handy guide on how to get there.

How Much: £15 / £12.50 LOCAL LINKS – Ticket with food
£10/ £7.50  LOCAL LINKS
Under 12s Free without food
Recommended for the whole family.

I’m really excited to be part of this, and it would be mega cool to see you there.

Commiserate is a monthly experiment in poetic collaboration.

April, 2013: Katherine Leyton

—

notes to a husband

I.

When I feed the ducks
my hard heels of bread

I hate how the black-
necked geese often do not care

for my crumbs.
That’s not really news

but it’s what I care
to report.

II.

The bed is cold ground
when you’re gone

my obsessions sweat
through the sheets
and I blink
at the ceiling

as it lowers itself.
In the morning
I think about our kitchen window–
the time a sparrow collided with our reflection

we’d been eating toast
hands gripping mugs
everything like any day.

III

When I swim
I know only swimming

this water remembers my body

you will come back and say
I’ve memorized every inch of you

but your hands will feel cool
strange and I will shudder the first time

your mouth moves for my skin.

IV

My bookshelves prove
I will keep expanding
like a universe, unchecked

V

When you are here
and sitting still
I make you read to me

I lay my head in your lap
and you get nervous:
“She gave him his eyes, she found them
Among some rubble, among some beetles.”

You stumble
and I reach up and put my hand
to your neck.

VI.

I don’t know whether to answer the telephone
or the emails or the door. I am too drunk

to eat fish. Windows or not,
your eyes are broken

and we have conversations
in my head like a television

on somewhere,
letters I don’t send.

VII.

Your job is to be forgotten
but present. A rattling

glass eye or some trashy
romance novel I never read

but refuse to throw away.

VIII.

Call me.
Call me and don’t say anything.
Call me and pray.
Call me and talk for the dead.

I will call you.
I will call you when my legs open wider.
I will call you when yolk sticks on the plate.
I will call you when night wakes me.

Call me when you buy carrots / when you feel like a run / it is raining / the bus is late /
you stop to help an old woman up the stairs/ I will call you

when i notice the moon again / when i rinse out the bottles / before the trash / must go out / call and there are no answers / no endings / i will call you when i remember
what it is / i entered / the kitchen for

—

Katherine says: I’m a bit of a fascist when it comes to my poetry, so I’ll admit I found this exercise very frustrating at first, especially since Ryan took the lead on it and decided both the context and the opening stanza.

Here, Ryan says, go anywhere you want, but only in this room. Or, in this case, be anyone you want, but only in the confines of this marriage.

In the end, of course, constraints are wonderful things because they challenge you to go places in your writing you normally wouldn’t.

And working with Ryan is exciting: what I like about his work is that it explodes in these unexpected places into deep grooves and melodies that I really want to get into, be a part of, and it was wonderful to have the opportunity to do that. I’m really glad he asked me to participate in this project.

Ryan says: Originally from Canada, I’ve known Katherine since her days of study in Edinburgh. Her mature, considered, (occasionally angry) voice and rare concern for The Poem struck me from our very first workshop together and, indeed, my first collection remains indebted to her eyes.

Since then she’s been at work on her craft and it has been my privilege to read her poems as often as she cares to send them along. Having just read her recently finished first manuscript, I remain excited about the future.

Katherine’s poems have appeared in places like The Malahat Review, The Edinburgh Review, and Room. She was also the founder one of the more exciting poetry projects I’ve seen in a long time — How Pedestrian. Without any funding or sponsorship, Katherine took poetry to the streets and got random people in random places to read poems aloud. You’ll want to dip into the project. But, first, have a read of our poem which was loosely inspired by a Tomaz Salumn poem which might have been called ‘Notes to My Wife’ (though, I’m not 100% positive) but was definitely in ‘A Ballad for Metka Krasovec‘.

— Read More From Commiserate 2013 —

This Saturday (30 March) I’ll be jaunting down the west coast to sunny Manchester to join SJ Fowler and his awesome collaboration project Enemies. From 5-9.30pm in the Annexe Room of the Cornerhouse, let us take you on a journey of original collaborations in poetry, sonic art and visual art, celebrating the resurgent energy of the northwest innovative poetry scene. Enemies in the North will also see the launch of “Gilles de Rais” (by David Kelly and SJ) and “The Estates of Westeros” (by Ben Morris and SJ), two books in boxes, published by Like This Press; also “Elephanche” (by Marcus Slease and SJ), a book of poemplays, published by Department Press. If you hadn’t noticed, SJ is a busy busy man.

The show will feature so many pairs of awesome creators. These pairs are: Zoe Skoulding & Robert Sheppard; Richard Barrett & Nathan Thompson; Sarah Crewe & Jo Langton; Michael Egan & Bobby Parker; Steven Waling & Matt Dalby; Adam Steiner & Eleanor Rees; Alec Newman & yours truly; James Byrne & Sandeep Parmar; SJ Fowler & Marcus Slease; Daniele Pantano & David Kelly; Tom Jenks & Chris McCabe & Ben Morris. If there isn’t a tag team on that list that quickens your pulse, you may well not have a pulse.

What: Enemies in the North

Where: Cornerhouse, 70 Oxford Street, Manchester, M1 5NH (adjacent to Oxford St Station)

When: Saturday 30 March, 5-9.30pm

How Much: FREE FREE FREE

Hope to see you there!