100 Word Review - The World Ends With You (DS)

Following the obsessive commercialist accumulation of Pokemon (“gotta catch'em all!”), The World Ends With You takes the CRPG to its logical conclusion and sets it in a cosmopolitan shopping district. You're one of many teenagers trapped in an parallel Shibuya, forced to play a mysterious game or be 'erased'. Might sound like watered down Battle Royale, but it's so packed with ideas I didn't care. When not engaged in its intense 'stride cross' battle mode, naturally you'll be shopping. My inventory could illustrate Marx's opening to Capital. Why buy so much? Because if you don't THE SHOPKEEPERS WON'T LIKE YOU.

100 Word Review - Façade (PC)

This five-year-old interactive one-act play was once hailed as “one of the most important games ever created, possibly the most important game of the last ten years”, chiefly because events in Façade play out with or without the player; you are there simply to nudge a bickering couple in the direction of reconciliation through minor actions. Alas, you need to play through so many times in order to learn how to do this (it makes no intuitive sense) that the experience becomes Groundhog-Day-ish – eternally trapped in dull conversation with a pair of infuriatingly fickle and self-obsessed American AIs.

Libraries as Refuge

Cuts to public services are everywhere you look, despite, as you've no doubt heard, huge corporations like Vodafone slinking out of paying their taxes. Many persuasive arguments have been put forward to save elements of our social infrastructure currently sat under the sword, most prominently, Phillip Pullman's much-read and much-lauded speech about saving libraries.

In the wake of numerous excellent polemics on why libraries are not a luxury or an unsustainable drain on resources, I thought I'd stick my oar in. Libraries are a refuge. You don't have to pay to sit in them, as in a cafe. You can stay till closing time, undisturbed. It's quiet, it's your own space and being in such a space, surrounded by possibility and interesting sources, allows people to set aside time to relax and improve their knowledge, use the internet or simply be entertained in a more interactive manner than just switching on TV repeats.

Public library cuts are in the news a great deal, but not so much the cuts to school libraries. This is horrendous for a number of reasons; I just want to address one. For anyone who has ever been bullied in school, who has constantly eaten lunch alone, who has struggled to find privacy, afraid of seeing a group of their tormentors round the corner in front of them, libraries represent a sanctuary where they can spend time without interruption, reading, checking emails or just thinking. Instead of hiding, they can sit in a warm, inviting place, secure in the knowledge that this time is theirs and nobody can hurt them here.

I'm not saying this is a solution to bullying - there is no easy solution - but with the rate of victimisation among school-age children (bullyonline.org tells us that in the UK at least 16 children kill themselves each year because they are being bullied at school and no-one in authority is doing anything about it), hard times in your teens can feel like they're going to go on forever, and are insurmountable. US-based charity It Gets Better, which addresses teen suicide, particularly among young LGBT people, bases its campaigns on the idea of hanging in there, reinforcing the idea that there's a wider world outside the savage ecosystem of secondary school and a place for everyone in it. A really important sentiment, but sometimes a little help is needed to hang in there when it all gets a bit relentless.

Libraries can do a little bit towards this goal, providing respite and helping kids - nerdy, awkward, different, lonely, or just picked on for the sake of it - get through what can be one of the most challenging times of their lives.

100 Word Review - Sonic Colours (wii)

I don't know why everyone is calling this a return to form; Sonic has been going strong as a 2D platformer on the Gameboy Advance and DS for years. If this game represents his non-portable console comeback, however, then colour (arf!) me impressed. It takes a little getting used to, but as there's an emphasis on repeating levels for bigger scores a la Angry Birds, we can forgive the learning curve. As spectacle, it's ravishing and full of life – particularly the Japanese-themed aquatic levels and zany power-ups. No worthwhile two-player though, and rather too much lip from Sonic himself.

Days of Roses anthology launch

Days of Roses has made its mark as one of the most varied, constantly surprising and entertaining poetry nights on the London circuit. Co-hosted by Declan Ryan and Chris Horton, each night features a generous helping of poetry, storytelling and music, and while there are definitely house favourites, DoR introduces the audience to lots of fantastic new writers and musicians.

Dec and fellow poet Malene Engelund have now edited and put together an anthology to celebrate the acts who have played Days of Roses so far, and are going to be launching this rocket of delight on Wednesday 23 February at the Three Blind Mice, London, EC2A 4QW (lots of buses or nearest tubes Liverpool Street, Old Street or Shoreditch High Street). Just look for a big number 5 - it's a bit hard to spot at first but worth discovering!

The launch will feature readings from Jo Shapcott, Chris Horton,
Dec Ryan, Dominic McLoughlin, Gareth Jones, Liz Berry, Lydia Macpherson, Malene Engelund, Marianne Burton, Maximilian Hildebrand, Robert Selby and William Searle, as well as music from Fiona Bevan and Mr Dupret Factory and friends.

Copies will be available on the night with 15 different signed and numbered covers created by Ross McNicol and Amelia Newton Whitelaw.


Facebook event page here!

100 Word Review - Cork Shoes

Since high street shoes tend to be ethically suspicious, I thought it worth investing in some vegetarian shoes, made in Portugal and sold in Brighton. I chose the Ariel Mk 2, made from cork, fake suede and 'Vegetan bucky', and I've been wearing them since last October. I hesitate to say they're more durable than cheap shoes – I'm not having issues with the sole peeling away, but the layer of cork is flaking noticeably on the inside. Aesthetically, they can't quite carry off the 'scruffy trainer' look; they genuinely seem to need more care than I've been giving them.

Available here

100 Word Review - Muramasa: The Demon Blade (wii)

The only major let-down in this supremely beautiful Muromachi/Edo-era Japan-themed slash'em up is the lack of a two-player mode. You get two characters – amnesiac samurai Kisuke and demon-possessed princess Momohime – but their stories are played through separately, only interweaving in the hot mountain springs where they briefly meet. Other than that, it's boldly, brilliantly animated sword combat with obakemono, ninja, monks and samurai set in rolling meadows, rivers, towns, mountains and bamboo jungles, interspersed with levelling up, forging more powerful blades and, most charmingly, cooking and eating delicious-looking food a piece at a time, replete with curling steam.

Sidekick Books Artist Profile: Lois Cordelia

Continuing our artist profile series, today I'm talking to the fantastic Lois Cordelia, whose magical scalpel-cut silhouettes dance across the cover, and between the pages, of the forthcoming Birdbook I.

Born 1982 in Ipswich, Lois is a self-taught artist. Since graduating from Edinburgh University in 2006 with an honours degree in Arabic, she has renewed her focus on the visual arts through exhibiting in a series of solo and joint shows in the UK and Germany. Her work spans a diverse range of media and styles: silhouette paper-cuts, portraits in acrylics and pastels, wildlife art, still-lifes, Arabic calligraphic compositions, and sculpture. Her latest exhibition, Black Gold, has been extended till 10 March 2011 at the Open The Gate Cafe, Dalston.

Sidekick Books: Who or what would you say influences your work?

Lois Cordelia: Ideally, artwork is an endlessly dynamic process of flow, in which everything influences and is influenced by everything else. I welcome positive influences from every source, whether visual, musical, poetical or mystical. Beauty inspires and speaks to me wherever I find it.

The creative process is a birthing process: a process of conception, gestation and bringing to birth. I am influenced and inspired by things I see or hear around me. These are the seeds that are sown in my imagination. The embryo grows, develops and evolves organically and takes on a life of its own, nourished by daily experience of sights, sounds and ideas. Only at the final stage (the 'birth') does the artwork manifest in physical form, though even during birth it continues to evolve.

As the poet Kahlil Gibran wrote: “Work is love made visible.” I avoid creating anything at all if I am not in a loving, positive, open frame of mind, because the resulting artwork will inevitably be affected by my emotional state. The flow of creativity often gives me a feeling of a natural 'high', and so my emotional response gathers its own momentum towards something approaching ecstasy that carries me through the tremendous struggle of 'birth'.

A couple of quotations by other artists that I particularly relate to are the following:

“I find in all the artists that I admire most a disturbing element, a distortion, giving evidence of a struggle. ... In great art, this conflict is hidden, it is unresolved. All that is bursting with energy is disturbing – not perfect.”
(Henry Moore)

“My goal in life is to give to the world what I was lucky to receive: the ecstasy of divine union through my music and my dance.” (Michael Jackson)

SKB: Does the subject matter you use vary wildly, or do you find yourself returning to certain motifs and ideas?

LC: I strive constantly to reach beyond the mundane surface of things. Seeing a person, an animal, or a tree, for example, I try to capture something of the soul or consciousness that animates it. My inspiration comes from anything that evokes dance, movement and metamorphosis: nature, human figures, animals, trees, running water, the seasons, dance, music, rhythm, poetry, light and dark, and so my subject matter varies widely.

From intricate paper silhouettes, painstakingly cut by hand using a surgical scalpel, to fast and furiously painted portraits and landscapes in brilliant, dramatic colours, my artwork also spans a vast spectrum between precision and free-flowing energy, which has often caused visitors to my exhibitions to remark that the works they see could have been created by several different artists.

I tend always towards fluidity, allowing forms to evolve and metamorphose, one into another. Spirit is eternally changing and shape-shifting, and requires form to be flexible; if form is too rigid, it fossilizes and breaks. I particularly like to explore the expressive potential of Arabic and other cursive scripts to evoke this same principle, allowing the words to evoke further layers of poetic symbolism.

SKB: What convinced you to take part in the Sidekick Books projects?

LC: I've worked at intervals over the last decade with the Polish artist and illustrator of children's books Jan Pienkowski (co-author of the 'Meg and Mog' series, pioneer of the pop-up book genre, via Haunted House and other titles, and creator of many beautiful volumes of silhouette illustrations). Beyond this natural affinity and link with book illustration, I freely confess that I was persuaded to take part in the Sidekick Books project by the personal charisma and charm of our good friend the eminent alchemist Dr Fulminare...

SKB: Do you prefer to work alone or collaborate, and why? If the latter, what would your dream collaboration involve?

LC: The artistic profession can be an intensely lonely one. Being fiercely independent by nature, I generally prefer to work alone in the privacy of my room, immersing myself in my favourite music or poetry recordings, chosen to fit with whatever theme I am currently exploring.

Conversely, I would be the first to acknowledge my eternal debt to Jan Pienkowski (as mentioned above), from whom I have learned most about the organic process and philosophy of creativity and whom I will always consider my 'guru'. Whenever possible, I also love to perform live art demonstrations, painting portraits and landscapes or creating paper-cut works in public, as the dynamics of a live audience add an invaluable layer of zest and spontaneity.

SKB: What would you say is the most common misconception about art that you've encountered?

LC: The most clichéd misconception I've encountered is that professional artists (whether painters, poets or musicians) are naive and blissful "thinkers of beautiful thoughts", untroubled by reality. Frequently I am asked by people: So when are you going to get a real job? It is not a path for the faint-hearted. Yet it is consoling and humbling to find oneself in the company of some of the greatest artists in history, who have all too often worked themselves to pieces and burned themselves out at a relatively young age, in passionate pursuit of their vision, only to be “discovered”, recognised and appreciated a century after they died!

***

See more of Lois and her splendid scalpel at www.LoisCordelia.com.

Save The Tropical Zoo!

Last weekend we went to The Tropical Zoo for Siân's birthday. If you've not been, it's based out in Brentford, which is pretty easy to get to from London, and it's amazing.

When we walked in, the first two things we saw, just past the ticket desk, were one cat, sleeping in the gift shop, and one enormous tortoise, padding freely around! We would go on to encounter three types of monkey, noisy macaws, huge fish, an alligator, exotic frogs, spiders, chickens, and this was just the ones we didn't hold!

At four, we went to see the staff talk about some of the animals, and got to hold a cockroach, a giant millipede, a king snake, a python, two dragons (Jon is up top with the lovely Ben) and a gorgeous leopard gecko. You simply can't do this at ZSL, which, much though I love it, costs double the entry fee and doesn't allow you to get quite as close. Children are more than welcome and are all given an opportunity to hold and stroke the animals (most were way braver than their parents).

As we were about to leave, we saw a crowd in the reception area and looked up to see a stunning sloth hanging from the ceiling. Her name was Cynthia and one of the members of staff had green beans for her to eat (sloths may be slow but they're no fools). We were allowed to offer her beans and that feeling of her huge claws brushing my fingers was just incredible, as she deftly transferred the goodies to her mouth. Mind-blowing.

Unfortunately for the Tropical Zoo, the lease is not being renewed, and the zoo and its residents have to move. This will cost £1.2 million, according to the website, and the target needed for now is £350,000. All of the animals here are rescued, from piranhas to marmosets, and the zoo is a sanctuary for them. If the money for the move cannot be raised by September, their future is not certain.

A bargainous £6.50 maximum (concessions available) gets you access to this incredible place, and guarantees you a fantastic day out. Please support this friendly and educational walk on the wild side.

http://www.tropicalzoo.org/Save-Your-Local-Zoo.html

ANOMIE: a game for four or more players

'Anomie' is an experimental card game I’ve developed as part of my project examining jokes as disruptive agents in social relations. It looks at what happens when you incorporate a zone outside of the rules of the game into the rules of the game itself. I’ve tried it with three groups so far, and so I’m throwing it out into the internet ether in the hope people might give it a go and let me knows what happens!

As it happens, the game itself tends to be pretty anarchic, partly because it is a bit complicated and very hard to tell what’s going on in the game, but also because of the powers given to the Joker card. It tends to get a little silly as well. I would recommend using a deck of card you wouldn’t mind, say, seeing physically destroyed.

The rules are below. The game is an experiment and is very much in development, so thoughts, feedback, ideas, feelings, experiences would be brilliant. Also let me know if anything is horribly ambiguous, then I will amend the below accordingly.

Set up
At the beginning of the game, the two jokers are removed from the deck, and each player draws a card. This card becomes their objective card. The jokers are then added back in, and all players then draw a further 3 cards.

Sequence of play
The game progresses by each player taking turns to lay cards face up into one of two piles - an IN pile and and OUT pile, and then taking another card from the main deck (which is face down). The aim of the game is to get as many cards with the same suit and rank in the IN pile, and as many cards of the opposite colour in the OUT pile. The composition of these piles determine the players score at the end.

The game ends when all cards have been played into either the IN or the OUT pile.

To make it a little easier, I've made a little print out game board which shows you where to place the cards. Completely non-essential, but might prevent initial confusion.

Special cards
If we left it at that, the game would proceed via mere luck. But all the picture cards (Jack, Queen, King, Ace and Joker) all have special powers as described below.

Jack: Allows you to take the top two cards from the opposite pile to which you've played it. So if you play a Jack into the IN pile, you can take the top two cards from the OUT pile and place them in the IN pile as well.

Queen: Make another player pick up 3 cards from the opposite pile. So if you play this in the OUT pile you can make another player pick up the top 3 cards from the IN pile. The player who picks up the cards carries on as normal, but won't pick up an additional card on their go until they are back to three cards.

King: Force any player to swap their objective card for another card. First they discard their objective card(s) into either the IN or OUT pile, face down. If there are cards left in the main deck (i.e. that haven't come into play yet) then they have to take the first card from the main deck. Otherwise, whoever played the King picks a card from their hand at random - this becomes their objective. (Note that you cannot make a player with no cards change their objective)

Ace: Force another player to discard their entire hand, face down, into either the IN or OUT pile at your discretion.

Joker: This is the fun one. This gives a complete free move. What does 'free' mean? Exactly what it says. You can do anything. You can seize another players hand, you can give yourself twenty objective cards, you can throw the IN pile out of the window, whatever you want. There are logical restrictions though: this is a free move, not a series of free moves. Whatever you do has to be defendable as a 'move'. And I guess really it shouldn’t result in the joker you've played ending up back in your hand (the other joker is fine however). Apart from that, you can do whatever you like.

Scoring
Once the game is over, everyone shows their objectives. You then need to go through the IN and the OUT pile, and allocate points to player as follows (it helps to have a bit of paper to do this!)

The IN pile:
- for each card of the same suit as the player's objective: 1 point.
- for each card of the same rank as the player's objective: 3 point.

The OUT pile:
- for each card of the same colour as the player's objective: -1 point.
- for each card of the same rank as the player's objective: -3 points.

Variants
I’ve not tried most of these - really they are ways of getting you to mess with the games rules just to see what happens.

• If you have a large group (6 or more) try having two decks in play.
• For more tactical play, instead of placing cards into a single pile, lay the IN and OUT cards as you would in solitaire, allowing you to see the entire composition of each pile.
• With the above variant, have it so the Jack and the Queen can take any continuous set of cards, and not the last two or three played.
• Experiment with changing what you can do with the Joker - for instance, have it so you can do anything for 10 seconds rather than a single free move.
• Try setting secret objectives other than getting the most points - e.g. (1) make all players including yourself end in negative points (2) make the player next to you get the least points (3) attempt to get at least two thirds of the other players to achieve their secret objective (4) be the only player in negative points and so on. I’m going to make a deck of these you can print at a later stage.

Talking About Poetry

As someone who tries, more than occasionally, to review poetry books, I've spent a lot of time - much of it in some sort of face-clutching intellectual agony - trying to work out how to best articulate my response to the work. 'Best' here meaning that people (a) know what I'm talking about, and (b) are able to believe me. The latter, you might think, wouldn't be a problem, but it is. With criticism, it really is. If you sound hazy when it comes to the details, inexact, or flood your prose with grand, overblown assertions and generalisations, you come across as a salesman or politician, not a critic.

And it's not easy to avoid. I know that. Poetry is hard to talk about. That may be (I think it is) one of the main reasons why it's regarded as 'difficult'. What's missing isn't necessarily a person's ability to enjoy poetry, but rather to explain their enjoyment - or the lack of it - in terms that allow them to hone in on what they like and block out what they don't. Pop music is conveniently divided into genres. Imagine if, instead, no one could instantly articulate the difference between, say, Hallelujah and My Name Is. Think of the perennial (albeit diminishing) distance between the younger generation, who are tuned into the latest terminology surrounding music, and the older generation to whom all modern sounds blend into one uncomfortable mash.

Even if we ignore genrefication (or rather, write it off as ultimately undesirable, for different reasons) the fact is that a wide range of people are able to comfortably discuss the differing qualities of film, fiction, art, computer games, television and comics, both in the national media and in every corner of the internet. They can debate it. They can rage about it. This is the kind of engagement that gives these arts the feeling of being public, of being owned by everyone, rather than elitist and out of bounds.

Meanwhile, on the poetry front, discussion is too often limited to 'the state of things' or general feelings about form, the 'mainstream', publishing, performing, et cetera. While there are many who will put their back into writing reviews, those reviews rarely elicit so much as a passing comment from anyone else, and then it will be: "Good review." Kirsty and I recently received a polite email back from a book blog saying they didn't feel able to review our books because they had no one who was properly able to engage with poetry. In the age of the internet, when a 15-year old can set themselves up as a film reviewer, a literary blog doesn't feel able to talk about our books. I'm not admonishing them - this is simply how it is.

And then I look at recent articles by prize-winning, much respected poets in national newspapers and realise the problem goes all the way to the top. This is Don Paterson, explaining what it was that made the winner of the inaugural Picador prize - which has received a ton of press coverage, by poetry standards - stand out against the shortlist:

"But there was something in Richard Meier's turn of mind, the precision of his ear, the quiet strangeness of his imagery, the tenderness and clarity of his address ..."

This is his new star, the future of his list, and this clutch of incredibly vague and cliched assertions is the best he can do? What does Richard Meier write about? What's his 'thing'? What sorts of techniques does he employ? The best Paterson can give us is 'something'.

Next comes Jackie Kay, in the wake of Jo Shapcott's Costa Book Award victory, explaining how poetry is enjoying 'a beautiful renaissance'. What is it, then, about Shapcott's book that tells us the event us truly upon us? 

"... a rare thing, an uplifting book about death and mortality ..."

Okay, fair enough - Kay isn't attempting to sell us the book. This is only part of the picture, the rest of which will be built up over the course of the article:

"Christopher Reid's heartbreaking tribute to his wife ... Derek Walcott's remarkable White Egrets won the prestigious TS Eliot prize .... Carol Ann Duffy ... has reinvigorated the poetry world... a buzz in the world of poetry, showing that poetry is a force to be reckoned with ... the age of generosity is spilling out of the world of poetry ... the poetry pamphlets handsomely produced by ... small presses ... are flourishing ... Faber has just produced some extraordinary poets ... This might have to do with the poet's uncanny ability to speak for us and for our time ... From the pamphlet and the small press to the lit fest, new things are happening in the poetry world ... a proliferation of authentic and original voices, chiming with the voices of the entire population ... These readings are unique events, in the sense that they are electrifying ... There is no doubt about it, whatever the convergence of reasons and coincidences: poetry rocks."

She quotes others, including the Poet Laureate, to the same effect:

"People are coming at the poetry world from all different perspectives. Just last week I met a neurologist who said he had a great poetry reading group at work ... Poetry is very confident now, and it does feel like it should be a guest at the table."

Amid her article, there are some salient points about the rise of women poets and black poets. Why this isn't the subject matter of the whole piece is slightly beyond me, since the rest reads like a full page advert aimed at investors, hyping the poetry industry as a new mover and shaker. Figures are cited that supposedly prove an upswing in attendance and enthusiasm. The Picador prize is mentioned again, for no discernible reason except, perhaps, to reinforce the fact that people think it's worth mentioning. What is absolutely glaring in its absence is any articulation of what the poetry in question is actually doing; what it's embracing, rejecting, brawling with, studying, deconstructing, destroying, reinforcing. All that matters, apparently, is that people are 'getting it', even though neither Kay nor the Guardian can explain to us what exactly 'it' is.

The problem here is this: all these blandishments and upbeat noises cover up real issues, debate and conflict within poetry that, were the separate strands to find their voice, would be far more enticing to the average Guardian reader (and others beyond), since they invite negotiation and navigation. The soft sell results in nothing but the reader noting, perhaps with a warm feeling, that poetry is doing all right for itself, before moving on. The idea that these sorts of articles are, as presented on their face, news items is laughable; everyone involved knows it's vital publicity, but it's publicity done badly. Covering up the struggles within British poetry and passing it off as a happily united front is the exact opposite of what its advocates should be doing.

So why do they do it? One could ungenerously conclude that, given Duffy's surprising assertion that "there's little competitiveness in the poetry world" and Paterson's unsubtle put-downs of nay-sayers, that this is the old guard reinforcing their ivory tower by denying the existence of alternative poetries - or rather (this is more my theory) are guided by their own vision of a coherent, all-encompassing texture of contemporary poetry that naturally ignores the many ill-fitting jigsaw pieces.

But the best explanation, to my mind, is that people just don't know how to talk about poetry. They don't know how to make it a proper subject for discussion. So they flail around for figures and bold statements, hype up contests and events and name-drop, name-drop, name-drop, in the hope that all this will provoke someone else to kick off the real talking for them.

The General Update

Just to keep everyone posted on Sidekick/Fuselit activities, here's the SitRep. We're currently awaiting proofs of Birdbook and are part of the way through putting together the hard copy version of Fuselit: Contraption.

The former was beset with difficulties in getting a 1.24 gigabyte pdf to the printers (and yes, we tried the various rapid transfer devices, as well as breaking it up, compressing it etc), while the latter is currently being roadblocked by my design ideas being way too 'out there' for the internet to be able to help me with. There's one particular visual concept I'm googling at the moment that has given me page after page of people skirting around the issue, as well as that perpetual irritation: the gateway page generated by whatever you put in the search bar, posing as exactly what you're looking for but offering nothing of the sort.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, just imagine you were looking for cursed and painted horses. Upon googling 'cursed painted horses', you will find any number of sites that claiming to be cursed-painted-horses.com or 'The definitive cursed painted horses site'. When you go to them, they're nothing more than poor search engines displaying results for horses, paints and curses, but never the three altogether.

This is only one of any number of obstacles that seem to be generated every day by a hateful world in response to our quest to make great literary knick-knacks. In response, we've turned our stubbornness settings up to 11 and increased the setback threat level to 'severe'.

SaltPlus reading tonight!

Along with Roddy Lumsden, I'm co-hosting SaltPlus, a fantastic night of Salt poetry at the Phoenix Artist Club (same place as the Seance on Tuesday) tonight! Come along for an outstanding night of poetry. Here's the deal:

Salt Plus is a new monthly reading series featuring both poets on the Salt list and other poets, new and known.

The first event has sets from Liane Strauss, Mark Waldron and Chris McCabe. Three of those featured in the forthcoming Salt Book of Younger Poets will also read - Dai George, Kayo Chingonyi and Siofra McSherry.

7.30pm-9.30pm, Phoenix Artist Club, 1 Phoenix Street (nearest tubes Tottenham Court Road, Leicester Square).

Facebook event here!

Dr Fulminare's Dark Science Seance

Ever the humble innovator, Dr Fulminare, former leading light of the foolhardy Guild of Alchemists and current raconteur, freelance necromancer and head of Sidekick Books, invites you to join his minions for a Dark Science Séance, to launch the experimental poetry anthologies Pocket Spellbook and Korsakoff's Paper Chain.

What be these? Well see here:
http://www.drfulminare.com/publications.html

Hosted by Dr F's indentured servants Jon Stone and Kirsty Irving, with readings from contributors Cliff Hammett, Amy Key, Edward Mackay, Dec Ryan, James Wilkes, Chrissy Williams and Adham Smart. There will also be the only-thus-far planned full read through of the text reresurrection adventure story that is Korsakoff's Paper Chain.

Prepare to see science and superstition, those unlikely bedfellows, thrown together with nary a care! Hell, we're going to splash out and get snacks for you folk too!

FREE ENTRY

2010 Retrospectacular / 2011 Plotorama

Happy new year to everyone, particularly those to whom I have not yet wished it.

I don't think I've had good reason to write a retrospective of a year before because nothing very much seems to have happened. But some time in mid-December, I started miserably trying to account for all the months that had drifted by, and realised that actually, it's been quite a good year for Kirsty and myself, as poets and poetry activists if not so much in our professional capacities. So I'm going to do a quick run through 2010, and then talk a little about our plans for 2011.

In January and February, we were still working on getting Cut Out & Keep off the ground as a regular online journal, as well as promoting the first two Sidekick Books micro-anthologies and putting together Fuselit: Tilt, in much the same way as we begin this year putting together Fuselit: Contraption. I found out a poem of mine had placed highly in the National Poetry Competition (although the ceremony wasn't until March), and after a lightning-quick weekend editing session involving (possibly) dozens of emails exchanged between me and Helena Nelson, my debut pamphlet, Scarecrows, was ready to go. The reception it received, coupled with the prize, doubled my confidence in a very short space of time and created some much-needed momentum. I was offered more readings in the next few months than I had been in my full and awful 27 years up to that point, and I still feel genuinely thrilled to have been able to do sets at events like The Shuffle, Days of Roses and the Torriano Reading Series. It all feels rather jammy, in fact.

National Poetry Awards ceremony. I'm the smuggest one.

In March, we were finally able to make Tilt available to buy, and reams of positive feedback followed, with initial demand far outstripping our ability to make a paltry ten or so copies a week. Kirsty appeared for a reading and interview on Sydenham Radio, while articles we published on Dr Fulminare's Irregular Features included ruminations by K on the endings of poems, and Chrissy Williams on her new job at the South Bank Poetry Library. We also dusted off our guitars to play a one-off gig called Suffering Jukebox, alongside other bands, including Dec Ryan's The Shingles, and it was there that a plan was hatched to put on a Leonard Cohen tribute night.

In April, said tribute night came to fruition, with poets and songwriters a-plenty, as well as NME/Guardian journalist Gavin Martin giving a short talk. But we spent most of April writing a poem a day in the much-maligned tradition of NaPoWriMo.

In May, Kirsty read at The Golden Hour in London, as part of its nationwide tour and we both took part in Roddy Lumsden's Lardermania event, writing and reading poems about food (I chose um ... 'tongue' and K went for ... 'ants').

In June, we went to Edinburgh for Happenstance's 5th birthday party and to be special guests at Rob Mackenzie's Poetry at the .... Happenstance, who published Scarecrows, went on to win the Michael Marks Publishers' Award, the only prize in this country for a pamphlet publisher. K had a poem published in the first issue of George Ttoouli and James Brookes' sumptuously produced Polarity and something of mine turned up in Dwang 2. I was also the Friday Feature poet one week in Todd Swift's well known Eyewear blog, and he said some flattering stuff about me.

So far, so good, eh? In July we went on holiday. Not for the whole of July, but that was the main achievement.

In Conwy with chums. Cheap hols ahoy!

August was something else. In August, we joined up with Days of Roses (Dec Ryan and Chris Horton) to celebrate Fuselit's 5th birthday (apparently a lot of stuff was being birthed in 2005 - Eyewear was also 5 this year) and to launch the 16th issue of Fuselit, Jack. It was a free event with cake, and we sold out of almost everything we'd brought to sell. Silkworms Ink published my e-pamphlet Thra-koom and Mercy's Twelve Angry Zines project included extracts from past issues of Fuselit, as well as new poems by Kirsty and me.

In September, Kirsty read versions of her poems in English and German to an audience of ninjas in at the first Kunoichi Taikai in Hannover. Then she went on to sell copies of Coin Opera and Obakarama to them at a little stall. She also read at Roddy Lumsden's Broadcast Old, New, Borrowed, Blue event, while I did my first of three talks about the more cerebral side of 1980s cartoons at Camden School of Enlightenment. After a lot of tinkering, we uploaded up a brand new site for Fuselit in anticipation of the coming change of format.

Technically, it's 'bujinkan', not 'ninja training' or 'ninjing'

October saw the release of the third Sidekick Books micro-anthology, Pocket Spellbook (which was originally supposed to be out in April/May). Scarecrows was reviewed favourably in Poetry London and Kirsty and I both contributed to the Liverpool Biennial Audio Guide released by Mercy. I made my third appearance in under-30s poetry e-journal Pomegranate, and both of us read at the insanely popular Clinic Presents.

November was almost too much for us. It was back up to Edinburgh for an experimental night of poetry, art installations, computer gaming and ... some sort of music (dubstep?) under the banner of Golden Hour vs Plastic Forks, while a weekend of intensive writing produced our collaborative, pseudonymous pamphlet No, Robot, No! There was also the second Camden School of Enlightenment, and we managed two in two months with the release of a fourth micro-anthology, Korsakoff's Paper Chain. Best forget we also nearly lost our luggage at Gatwick.

Finally, in December, About a Minute, the inaugural exhibition at The Gopher Hole opened, featuring six new poems by me as part of a piece called Staring Into Space. It's running until early February, so there's still a chance to catch it! Kirsty and I also turn up in the much anticipated Stop Sharpening Your Knives 4, edited by Jack Underwood, Sam Riviere, Nathan Hamilton and Emily Berry.

Retrospectacular over. Plotorama begins.

NOW, what of 2011? First of all, we'll be booking a venue for the official launch of the two micro-anthologies. That's priority 1. Priority 2 is getting our first full-size anthology, Birdbook I, to the printers. It's huge and scary, and no doubt still needs the last few errors knocking out of it by a thorough proofing. We want it out this month, since many artists and poets have been waiting nearly a year to see their work on the page.

At the same time, we're working towards a February release of Fuselit: Contraption, which will be brought out simultaneously as an e-broadsheet, and in a limited edition of 100 print copies. There's a whole truckload of extra stuff going into this issue, fingers crossed, that should see us increasing its cross-medium appeal and readership, while keeping the old spirit going. What's more, there'll be badges. Or stickers. One of the two.

In February, we're also appearing at this event, which means we're going to have to scrabble around for anything that might be considered 'love' poems. Some time around, before or after then, there'll also be the rescheduled Orbiting event, which sees poet Richard Evans coming up to London to headline a fundraising literary auction event. Kirsty and I will both be reading at that too.

After that, we'll be pushing to finish and print Coin Opera II, the full-size sequel to our first micro-anthology. Some amazing poems lined up for this one, some of which (as with those in Birdbook I) are already finding their way into collections and other scheduled publications.

Rather than continue with micro-anthologies, the next set of books we want to aim towards will involve full collaborations between poets and illustrators. Not a case of illustrations based on or inspired by the poems, but something more even-handed. I'm envisioning intense talks - editor, poet, artist - about the structual integrity of each pamphlet, deep into the night.

There are a couple more projects, as well as personal missions, that I'm going to keep quiet about for now, at least until they're set in motion. We've certainly got plenty to keep us busy, but I'm hoping there'll be a few more surprises along the way as well. Cheers!