All entries for October 2009

Introducing… Luke Kennard

Writing about web page http://www.myspace.com/lukekennard

Luke Kennard

During a full moon, Luke Kennard splits in half. His doppelganger mutates into a wolf. His naked, shivering boy-self runs yelping and puling from the wolf, chased through Selly Oak, before diving through a star-carved portal into the world of imagination. He wakes the next morning, at the foot of the workers' statue in Centenary Square, shrouded in the paper kills of his hunt - poems grafted from blood, a newspaper blanket. Passing tramps pity him and offer him half a Ginsters' porkpie, but Luke Kennard shrugs this off, for he is a poet! His imagination is the storm breaking its shadow upon the mind.

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I'm not entirely sure if these work on the page. Hmm.

George Ttoouli : 29 Oct 2009 09:00 |  Tags: Introducings Luke Kennard Poetry |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Introducing… Matt Nunn

Writing about web page http://www.mattthepoet.co.uk/

Matt Nunn

Prophet of urban decay and concrete epiphanies, Matt Nunn quests through the city's broken regions looking for the elusive shrapnel that might capture the beautiful whole, but mostly finds himself watching fist fights in pub parking lots, or curry house brawls. Anti-laureate of Birmingham, prepare to witness the onslaught of a crusader at war with pretension and sentimentality. His name like the last beats on the drum before a charge: Matt Nunn.

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Mark Goodwin suggested I try writing a series of these poems, after introductions I gave four poets at a Nine Arches event in Birmingham.

George Ttoouli : 26 Oct 2009 09:00 |  Tags: Introducings Matt Nunn Poetry |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

UCU Petition: HEFCE wants to fund commercial research!

Writing about web page http://www.ucu.org.uk/standupforresearch

Just had an email from Warwick's UCU. Apparently HEFCE wants to target a quarter of its funding at research that demonstrates commercial market value. Yuh, and I'm a poet, and as David Morley is so fond of saying, "Poetry is the opposite of money." Wonder where that puts literary criticism about poetry?

This from Sally Hunt, General Secretary for UCU:

STAND UP FOR RESEARCH

Please join the six UK Nobel Laureates and many other leading academics who have already signed UCU's statement opposing proposals from HEFCE to change funding criteria. 

To sign click: http://www.ucu.org.uk/standupforresearch

If implemented, the proposals would mean that 25% of future research funding would be allocated according to its ‘economic and social impact’. 

HEFCE has put these proposals out to consultation and the deadline for submissions is 16 December.

The UCU believes that these ‘impact’ proposals represent an attack on the knowledge process and constitute a threat to the existence of basic research activity in the UK. 

Our statement calls on HEFCE to withdraw these proposals. We intend to submit this statement to the funding council and to publish the list of names.

It is already abundantly clear that these proposals do not have the support of the academic community. 

We need every member to sign this statement and to then pass on the link to colleagues to ensure that the voice of the profession is heard.

Please add your name to the list here and circulate this link among your colleagues:

http://www.ucu.org.uk/standupforresearch

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And this from the introduction to the petition:

The latest proposal by the higher education funding councils is for 25% of the new Research Excellence Framework (REF) to be assessed according to 'economic and social impact'. As academics, researchers and higher education professionals we believe that it is counterproductive to make funding for the best research conditional on its perceived economic and social benefits.

George Ttoouli : 23 Oct 2009 12:59 |  Tags: Capitalists Taking Over Academic Research David Morley Poetry Is The Opposite Of Money Ucu |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Practice of Fiction Week 1 Notes

Here are the weblinks/texts I referenced during the first session:

Online:

Timothy McSweeney's Internet Tendency
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/

Valentino Achak Deng’s charity
http://www.valentinoachakdeng.org/
(Video there of the school in Marial Bai.)

The Believer
http://www.believermag.com/

McSweeney's Quarterly Concern (the main magazine):
http://store.mcsweeneys.net/index.cfm/fuseaction/catalog.list/object_id/9772B00C-B37F-4915-88F8-8ED96E79EBF1/Journals.cfm

The Wholphin (DVD Magazine):
http://store.mcsweeneys.net/index.cfm/fuseaction/catalog.detail/object_id/2AF2AE97-8E22-4F9C-AC58-FA31F8D5347F/WholphinDVDSubscription.cfm

826Valencia
http://www.826valencia.org/
(I thought it was outside of San Francisco during class - I was wrong:
"We are located at 826 Valencia between 19th and 20th Streets in the Mission District of San Francisco. ")

Dave Eggers' TED Talk:
http://www.ted.com/talks/dave_eggers_makes_his_ted_prize_wish_once_upon_a_school.html

Dave Eggers' Short Short Stories at The Guardian:
http://books.guardian.co.uk/shortshortstories/0,,1178980,00.html
(These were redrafted for his Penguin collection.)

Dave Eggers' Short and Sweet article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2004/jun/18/shortshortstories.fiction

Donald Barthelme website, Barthelmismo:
http://www.eskimo.com/~jessamyn/barth/

Reading:

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, by Dave Eggers

What is the What, by Dave Eggers & Valentino Achak Deng

The Believer Magazine, ed. Vendela Vida (Dave's wife)

The Believer Book of Writers Talking Writers (revised & expanded), ed. Vendela Vida

The McSweeney's Book of Poets Picking Poets, ed. Dominic Luxford

A partial and poorly informed list of writers sometimes connected to McSweeney's:

Robert Coover

Nick Hornby

Zadie Smith

Michael Chabon

George Ttoouli : 13 Oct 2009 14:00 |  Tags: 826Valencia Creative Writing Dave Eggers Mcsweeneys Practice Of Fiction Valentino Achak Deng |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Diary of a Permaculturalist 14: Greenpeace Scales Parliament

Follow-up to Diary of a Permaculturalist 13: Notes towards an essay onNecessary Rot from George Ttoouli, Warwick Writing Programme

Not, as I'd have hoped, a case of Greenpeace covering Parliament in fishscales, which might have made (some, allegedly) MPs stink for real, rather than simply metaphorically. From their open letter to Parliament:

Dozens of Greenpeace volunteers scaled the walls of the Palace of Westminster yesterday and spent the night on the roof to welcome you back from your summer break. The threat of climate change is so grave that it requires radical action and we believe that what we are doing here today is necessary to send a clear message to the country's politicians. If we don't change the politics and take real action here and internationally we will lose our chance to save the climate.

Read the open letter in full.

George Ttoouli : 12 Oct 2009 13:10 |  Tags: Creative Writing Permaculture |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Trackbacks (2) |  Report a problem

Static Exile

Writing about web page http://www.pennedinthemargins.co.uk/?p=605

So, like, yeah. Kaboom! Big thanks to my publisher, Tom Chivers, at Penned in the Margins.

Amazon launch date is 9th November, but I'll be reading from the book at the official launch on Sunday 8th November, 8pm til late, at the Slaughtered Lamb.

Facebook event here.

I'll be reading with James Wilkes, who launches his book, Weather a System, on the same night. No weblink just yet for that, but for a preview, we published a short selection of his work over at Gists and Piths over summer. (Also there, as part of our Midlands Poetry Series, we're currently running nine of David Morley's bird poems, designed to be read while listening to the linked bird songs.

We've also two supporting readers, Holly Pester and Simon Turner (who co-edits Gists & Piths with me).

No doubt I'll be doing a reading somewhere in the vicinity of Coventry before the year's out, but if you're heading down to London for Reading Week, drop in. And if you manage to find a t-shirt to wear with a picture of Godzilla on it, I'll buy you a drink.

George Ttoouli : 04 Oct 2009 23:22 |  Tags: David Morley Godzilla James Wilkes Penned In The Margins Poetry |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem