On the road again

Cover of Vantar / Missing

London
I'll be performing poems from my forthcoming collection on the Arctic as part of Trapped in the Ice, Frozen in Time at the British Library on Thursday 5 February. The evening is programmed as part of the library's acclaimed exhibition Lines in the Ice, which examines the role of the Arctic in the making of the modern world (runs until 19 April). It will be hosted by the Library's redoubtable Interactive Fiction Writer in Residence Rob Sherman, and also features readings by the wonderful JR Carpenter and Kate Pullinger.

Oxford
It's the final meeting of Arctic Book Club on Monday 9 February. It's been a wild whistlestop midwinter tour of Arctic literature, and my deep thanks go to Dennis Harrison of the Albion Beatnik bookshop for providing such a cool venue, and to the Arts Council for generously supporting the programme. Thanks also, of course, to all our readers, including those who read the books long-distance from as far away as New York and Norway. Follow @ArcticBookClub on Twitter to keep up with plans for next winter's programme.

Reykjavik
In March I travel to Iceland where I'll be reading at Dynamics of Darkness in the North, a conference at the Nordic House which runs from 26 to 28 February. This promises to be a fascinating event, perversely celebrating the United Nations designation of 2015 as 'International Year of Light'.

Siglufjörður
Also in Iceland, my recent work Vantar | Missing is exhibited at Herhusið, open on Saturdays in March. This will be accompanied by Síður í Siglufjörður | Pages in Siglufjörður, a selection of artists' books on the theme of coastlines chosen by Sarah Bodman.

Bristol and Bedford
Back in the UK I'll be exhibiting my books at Bristol Artists Book Event on 11 and 12 April (look out for the premiere of my new Arts Council-funded collaboration with BSL poet Donna Williams on 12 April in the Reading Room). Later in the month I'm looking forward to being guest reader at Ouse Muse in Bedford on 22 April. 

Lines in the Ice

My latest book ITOQQIPPOQ - which was acquired by the British Library in the summer - will be shown as part of the British Library's exhibition Lines in the Ice: Seeking the Northwest Passage which runs from 14 November 2014 to 29 March 2015. Lines in the Ice examines the role of the Arctic regions in the making of the modern world. ITOQQIPPOQ will be in the company of early European maps of the Arctic, Inuit accounts of the coming of explorers and writings from the long search for the explorer Franklin. The curator has contributed a post to the BL's American Studies blog which gives an exciting glimpse of some of the other works that will be on show.

Bookbinding Now

During my trip to New York in October I chatted with Susan Mills in an interview recorded for her Bookbinding Now podcast series. This interview has just been made available here and can also be downloaded through iTunes.

Bookbinding Now is a great series featuring a different book artist every fortnight. I've listened to earlier podcasts to while away the hours spent sewing or making pochoir prints. Scroll down through the podcasts to find my particular favourite: Barbara Mauriello talking about the early days of The New York Center for Book Arts - when the studio was so chilly you had to wear gloves to set type.

Thank you Susan for giving up your time to keep us entertained in our studios!

Not the last post ...

... but the one hundredth. In the last 100 posts I've encountered empty museums in the Arctic, tried to find the shape of time, faked Nevelsons in West London and snoozed in the Lit & Phil Library. What next?

I'm celebrating my centennial post with the news that the British Library have requested permission to add the blog to their digital archive of UK websites that are 'considered to be of long term research value'. In case one gets big-headed about such an honour, the curator adds that some of the sites selected may be considered 'trivial' and 'basic', but are nevertheless chosen for being representative of particular interests in society. There's no grand plan behind this blog and I'm sure it doesn't represent any broader interests than my own very peculiar ones. But I've always liked talking to myself ...

Marginalia

Marginalia has been the flavour of the month. I've been ogling grotesque hybrid men and beasts, lascivious ladies and misbehaving monks, and I've seen grape vines and acanthus leaves in such abundance that by comparison autumn in Highbury seems rather cheerless. My passion for incunabula is a well-kept secret in comparison with my flagrant affair with contemporary book arts. So what has provoked this sudden confession?

It all began with the welcome news that the British Library has acquired the Macclesfield Alphabet Book, a rare medieval English 'model' or 'pattern' book dating from the early sixteenth century. The manuscript has been in the library of the Earl of Macclesfield since around 1750, and until recently its existence was completely unknown. Now, however, it lies serenely on display in the John Riblat Gallery of the British Library, basking in the same muted light as the great Haggadahs and Daoist Scrolls, for all the world like an up-and-coming British star who finds herself on the same table as Penelope Cruz at the Oscars.


The manuscript contains 14 different types of decorative alphabets. These include an alphabet of decorative initials with faces; foliate alphabets; a zoomorphic alphabet of initials, and alphabets in Gothic script. In addition there are large coloured anthropomorphic initials modelled after fifteenth-century woodcuts or engravings, as well as two sets of different types of borders, some of which are fully illuminated in colours and gold.


Meanwhile the publishing team at the British Library have been celebrating the rumbunctious medieval imagination, and have just released the fantastic book Images in the Margins by Margot McIlwain Nishimura. I've no doubt that many a monk would have committed sins of great moral turpitude to obtain the glossy colour printing techniques with which their painstaking gilding and illumination are so gloriously reproduced here (courtesy of Tien Wah Press, Singapore).


How modern publishing can do justice to ancient texts was the subject of a talk at the Wynkyn de Worde Society a few nights ago, given by the radiant Professor Michelle Brown. Brown initiated the 'Turning the Pages' technology at the British Library (and if you haven't already tried it, do - you'll find it a much more satisfying way of wasting time than Facebook). This inspired development makes precious texts available to a mass audience whilst preserving the original documents. Such inventive uses of digital technology, and a sensitive approach to the different strata of traditional publishing (from limited editions to glossy gift books), have been hallmarks of the Library's publishing programme. I wish that the Electronic Beowulf had been available on CD-ROM when I was studying - surely it must make Anglo-Saxon so much easier!

Brown spoke about marginalia in the Lutteral Psalter and the Holkham Bible. Both works are too magnificent to be allowed to languish in the collections as unique objects known only to academics. They were created during the 14th century, on the eve of the Black Death, one for a member of the aristocracy and the other the initiative of an enterprising Cockney artist, who both artistically and politically appears to have been a forebear of William Blake. Brown pointed out the satirical implications of marginalia: while medieval illuminators may have resorted to a copybook such as the Macclesfield Alphabet Book for style, they demonstrated wickedly independence subtexts in the imagery of animals and people drawn from daily life. On that happy note, we all adjourned to drink wine and misbehave like absurd characters from the bas-de-page.