Villa Concordia

Last week I arrived at the Internationales Künstlerhaus Villa Concordia in Bamberg, Germany where I will be based for the next eleven months as a Literature Fellow. The Künstlerhaus hosts a number of artists, writers and composers from Germany and one other country each year, with scholarships provided by the Free State of Bavaria. You can see below the warm welcome given to the British artists and our German colleagues: a personal welcome on the steps of the beautiful 18th-century building.

I'm excited to be participating in a few cultural events in Bamberg and Munich during May: details here.

Winter Roses

Canal Wreath by Phil Speight

This year I was commissioned to write a winter poem for The Poetry Society. I decided to take as my theme the hard graft that goes into maintaining a narrowboat during the coldest part of the year, as well as a life aboard, in particular the restoration of the traditional 'roses and castles' decorations.

The poem appears on the reverse of cards (blank inside) with a gorgeous wreath by traditional canal painter Phil Speight; sets can be purchased via The Poetry Society shop or in the Poetry Society Cafe in London - where my Canal Laureate exhibition Outlook and Inrush is on show until 2 February 2019.

I'm sharing wreath and poem here to wish all my friends and followers a productive winter and a peaceful and happy new year.

Borrowed Bookshelves 21

Arvon Foundation, Totleigh Barton, Devon.

Back to Nature? at Salon Berlin

I'm delighted to be returning to Germany next week to continue the summer's discussions on the theme of art in the anthropocene with an event at the Salon Berlin of the Museum Frieder Burda in partnership with the British Council. There'll be readings, a workshop, discussions with artists featured in the Back to Nature? exhibition - and pizza in the Clärchens Ballhaus. Full details and booking information on the website.

Two anthologies

I'm delighted to have poems in two anthologies published by The Emma Press this summer: 

Some Cannot Be Caught: The Emma Press Book of Beasts, edited by Anja Konig and Liane Strauss and illustrated by Emma Wright (available here)

and In Transit: Poems of Travel, edited by Sarah Jackson and Tim Youngs (available here).

Upcoming Event: Oxford Poetry Library

I'm excited to be part of the birthday celebrations for the wonderful Oxford Poetry Library.

Come and join us on 11 May!

Upcoming event: Barge Fiodra

This photo (taken by Canal & River Trust Writer in Residence Jasper Winn) shows me and Pierre Tremblay during our epic cycle journey along the Regent's Canal last month. The excursion was the start of a collaboration which has led to a new filmpoem about the Regent's Canal.

The fillmpoem, The Cut, will be premiered as part of Barge Fiodra's March festival. On 15 March you can join me onboard Fiodra for a short screening, followed by readings of canal poems written since I was appointed Canal Laureate in January. Although small, the venue is supplied with a comprehensive bar and there'll be opportunity for convivial discussion and mingling post-event.

You can see an introduction to Pierre Tremblay's work and catch up on my first month as Canal Laureate on the Waterlines blog.

Poetry Book Society Winter Bulletin

It's still winter - just! And before spring floods in I wanted to take this chance to thank the Poetry Book Society for using my work on the cover of their beautifully redesigned bulletin. The image of icebergs from my 2015 Ilulissat series also features on a poetry postcard alongside 'The Widow and Kaleidoscope' from Sasha Dugdale's new collection Joy, which is the Poetry Book Society Winter Choice.

Find out more about the work of the Poetry Book Society here

or read an extract from the title poem of Joy 

which won the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem 2016

Canal Laureate 2018

I'm delighted to be appointed Canal Laureate for 2018 by the Canal & River Trust and The Poetry Society, following in the slipstream of writers Luke Kennard (Canal Laureate 2016-17) and Jo Bell (Canal Laureate 2013-15).

Over the coming months I will travel the 2,000 and more miles of waterways looked after by the Canal & River Trust -- wherever possible, in my kayak. I will seek out and share stories from the rich history of the waterways, and champion the importance of these 'green corridors' for wildlife. As well as poems featuring people who live and work on the waterways, I will create new collaborative works with other water-loving artists and writers.

My first canal poem, 'Safety Briefing' can be read on the Waterlines website, and subsequent poems will be posted there over the coming months. You can also follow the project on Twitter @CanalPoetry

More details in the announcement from The Poetry Society.

Autumn reading: printmaking and poetry in the north

For the last few months I've been absorbed in work on a new book, but even so there has been a little time for other things. I particularly enjoyed writing an article on the connections I find between kayaking and writing, published in the summer issue of Poetry News. Other work includes:

• A catalogue essay for Blue Hours, an exhibition to mark the close of Lucy May Schofield's year-long residency with Visual Arts in Rural Communities in Northumberland National Park. (Republished online in The Double Negative; image above: Khosro Adibi.)
• A review of the Hokusai exhibition at the British Museum in RA Magazine. 
• An interview with Scottish poet Macgillivray in Oxford Poetry magazine.
• An essay on my live lit project The Polar Tombola in The Blue Notebook: Journal of Artists' Books.
• Reviews of titles on book design by Carol Twombly and Jhumpa Lahiri in the Times Literary Supplement.

The highlight of the winter for me will be the Tove Jansson exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery, opening on 25 October. I'm delighted to see Jansson accorded this honour, and look forward to a new perspective on her work.

The Polar Tombola: Exhibition

A word donated to The Polar Tombola by poet Saradha Soobrayen

If you had to lose a word from your language, what would it be?

Endangered languages and censorship are the themes of an exhibition opening on 4 September 2017 at UWE Library,  Bower Ashton, Bristol. On display is the archive of The Polar Tombola, a participatory live lit / art project with which I have toured the UK over the last two years. I've been discussing language loss with artists, writers, librarians, curators, scientists and many others, and collecting the words these individuals feel they could - or should - live without. The exhibition includes all 300+ words donated to the archive, together with texts commissioned from leading contemporary writers for the accompanying anthology A Book of Banished Words. Visitors will also be able to see the original installation, including the 'tombola' and the Greenlandic-English dictionary that inspired the project.

Special Offer! The Polar Tombola: A Book of Banished Words is available post-free within the UK for the duration of the exhibition.

The Polar Tombola runs until 31 October 2017 at Bower Ashton Library, Kennel Lodge Road, Bristol, BS3 2JT. More details here.

For a full account to the project, look out for an article on The Polar Tombola in the forthcoming issue of The Blue Notebook Journal for Artists' Books.

The Polar Tombola exhibition, publication and tour were made possible with the generous support of Arts Council England Grants for the Arts.

Michael Murphy Memorial Prize

The shortlist for the 2017 Michael Murphy Memorial prize has just been announced by judges Deryn Rees-Jones, Karen Leeder and John Mcauliffe. The £1000 prize is awarded for a distinctive first book of poetry in English published in Britain or Ireland. I’m honoured that Disko Bay is one of the five titles on the shortlist, alongside This Changes Things by Claire Askew, Beauty / Beauty by Rebecca Perry, The Observances by Kate Miller and Otherwise by John Dennison.

The winner will be announced on National Poetry Day, 28 September 2017 and the prize will be awarded at the English Association's Annual General Meeting on 23 May 2018. Meanwhile, Disko Bay is available to Poetry Book Society members at the customary 25% discount.

Events

I'll be performing or exhibiting my work at these events over the next few months. Further information on times, venues and booking can be found on my website. 

This year's World Book Night United Artists project takes place over 10-12 March in Loch Ness. Watch this space to see whether we spot the Monster!

Oxford Poetry

Together with my co-editors, Mary Jean Chan and Theophilus Kwek, I'm delighted to announce a new issue of Oxford Poetry. The latest number brings together poems and prose on the theme of Erasure from Jack Underwood, Bernard O'Donoghue, Melissa Lee-Houghton, Alison Brackenbury, Shukria Rezaei, Jennifer Wong and many others.

Tom Paulin described Oxford Poetry as "One of the best small magazines in the country" and it's certainly one of the oldest, having been established in 1910, when it was set up by undergraduates and published by Basil Blackwell. These days, while maintaining a connection with the university, it looks far wider: the stellar poets who have recently featured in its pages include Carol Ann Duffy, Seamus Heaney, George Szirtes and Les Murray.

Read the full list of contributors and purchase or subscribe in the online shop.
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Winter reading: Morris, Freud, Bacon & Co

• a review of The Book Beautiful: William Morris, Hilary Pepler and the Private Press Story at Ditchling Museum of Art+Craft for the Times Literary Supplement blog. 
• a review of a number of new books on the art of letters, including Letter Writing Among Poets (ed. Jonathan Ellis) and The Letters Page (ed. Jon McGregor) in the Times Literary Supplement (print edition out 26 January and online).  
• an introduction to the National Original Print Exhibition catalogue, for the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers (RE), London. See illustration above, also accessible online.
• a pair of short catalogue essays on Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud for the exhibition Bacon / Freud: Selected Graphic Works at Marlborough Fine Art, London. Accessible online.
• an interview with artist Sue Ridge for a feature in Printmaking Today, looking at her prizewinning work Aphasia Wallpaper and its roots in the work and life of William Morris. (See illustration below.)
• a review of the catalogue for Degas: A Strange New Beauty, an exhibition of Degas' monotypes at MOMA, New York, in Printmaking Today.

Reading with Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Oxford

Fondation Jan Michalski - Residency

I have been awarded a residency at the Fondation Jan Michalski in 2017. This foundation for literature at the foot of the Jura in Switzerland has a large multilingual library and exhibition space, not to mention the wonderful "treehouses" for writers shown in the video above. I will use the residency to complete work on the first English translation of a selection of songs collected in Greenland in 1935 by the French anthropologist Paul-Emile Victor (originally published as Chants d'Ammassalik, Copenhagen, 1991).

Sun Beats Collective - Podcast

Nukúnguasik, who escaped from the tupilak

from Eskimo Folk-Tales by Knud Rasmussen (1921)

Sun Beats Collective (@sunbeatsco) have launched a new poetry podcast.

In the first episode of Under the Table hosts Sarah and Anna interview me about poetry and place, with the emphasis on the latter - and digressions via kayaks, qivittoq and tupilaks. There are poems from Andrew Fentham (who responds with panache to my challenge to write a sestina using the titles of Pet Shop Boys songs), Jane Yeh and - a new discovery for me - the work of minimalist poet Robert Lax.

I'm looking forward to the next episode already.

New edition!

A new edition of How To Say "I Love You" In Greenlandic has just been launched by MIEL books.

The new edition beautifully captures the colour and texture of the pochoir prints in the original artist's book, with its twelve postcards digitally printed on 300gsm cotton card stock, and an essay on Greenlandic language and landscape in the accompanying booklet.

MIEL books are offering an introductory discount of 30% to customers buying the book before 14 November 2016 - just quote the code WELCOMETOGREENLAND when you visit the online shop.

TV takeover - National Poetry Day 2016

Poetry took over the continuity slots at Channel 4 Television on National Poetry Day this month. Among the works broadcast were two poems from Disko Bay. I suspect 'Planning Permission' was deliberately scheduled before Grand Designs! Thanks to Dominic O'Shea at Channel 4 for making the recording such fun. You can watch the short films we made below.

Planning Permission

Summer Song