I love Tom Jenks’ poetry, it’s so playful and often hilariously funny yet there’s more going on beneath the surface than you might at first imagine.
Go read more at the Litter website. Go on! – Here – http://leafepress.com/litter11/spence6/spence6.html
if p then q is very pleased to announce its latest publication
Tom Jenks’ A Long and Hard Night Troubled by Visions
The book costs £8 and is another stunner from Jenks
About the book
Visions is Jenks’ fourth book from if p then q and is yet another step in a different direction from one of the UK’s premier poets. In Visions Jenks uses prose poetry to explore British and globalized hinterlands using his warped imagination to produce cacophonous results. The book also contains a final suite which contains two longer narrative poems and a wheezy poem that transcribes smoking in Mad Men (and a little bit of reading of Frank O’Hara).
About the author
Tom Jenks is a Manchester-based poet who has a number of collections including three previously celebrated collections with if p then q – A Priori, * and Items. Jenks’ poetry is always hilarious but that’s not all. There’s a serious agenda at work from an astute poetic mind. He is also the editor of the press zimZalla. His website which gives information on other publications and news can be found at https://www.zshboo.org/
Sample
Visions sampler V2
Tom Jenks has a new publication out from if p then q in a few weeks – A Long and Hard Night Troubled by Visions – an amazing book of surrealist, absurd prose poems. The book will be launched on 11th July at the if p then q 10 years’ bash. Link to Facebook – Poster for that event is below. And below that, an extract from one of the poems in Tom’s new collection called cockatiels, extracted from Disclaimer magazine, see the whole poem HERE
The blue cockatiel stares into the mirror. It pecks its reflection and rings a silver bell.
The blue cockatiel has mirror obsession, where the reflection becomes a mate substitute or a rival.
The yellow cockatiel contracted feather mites, which are small, hard to spot and can be mistaken for dappling. Feather mites can spread to human hosts if left unchecked.
The yellow cockatiel created an abundance of bird dust…
On June 2nd 2018 make sure you make it down to Guildford, just outside London, for this year’s Surrey University Poetry Festival curated by if p then q editor James Davies.
The event features rare readings by major American poets Tina Darragh and P. Inman, whose collected works was published by if p then q in 2014.
The festival will also inlcude Peter Jaeger performing a durational reading of his recent if p then q publication Midamble, as well as readings by other poets published by if p then q – Tom Jenks, Scott Thurston, Emma Cocker & Philp Terry.
The amazing line-up doesn’t end there. Performances will also take place from Clémentine Bedos & Sharon Kivland, Emma Bennett, Rebecca Cremin, Amy Cutler, Rob Holloway, Lila Matsumoto and students from the University of Surrey.
If you’re not familiar with any of these fine folks set yourself up for a treat. Brief descriptions and links to websites below:
Clémentine Bedos is a multidisciplinary artist whose recent shows include a solo exhibition at the Constance Howard Gallery, London ‘Contagious Hystories’. Currently exploring themes of identity, binaries and the Other. https://www.clementinebedos.com/
Emma Bennett’s recent performances include durational piano pieces, an exploration of pining for soft things, and interpreting the words of birdsong. https://emmabennettperformance.wordpress.com/
Emma Cocker is a writer-artist whose work explores the slippage between writing on page, to performance in time, between still and moving image, between individual and collective action. http://not-yet-there.blogspot.co.uk/
Rebecca Cremin draws on traditions of live art, Fluxus, performance writing and site-specific work using language as an object to expose, to investigate, to locate. http://www.veerbooks.com/Rebecca-Cremin-LAY-D
Amy Cutler is a multi-disciplinary practitioner with a special interest in geohumanities – the engagement between geography and arts/humanities. https://amycutler.net/
Tina Darragh is one of the original members of the Language group of poets. Her work explores class, race and ecology. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tina_Darragh
Rob Holloway is currently exploring sonnets and prose poems, and has been a DJ on Resonance FM. https://vimeo.com/9383523
P. Inman is associated with language and minimalist poetry. His work has been described as ‘thick with meanings that never quite complete themselves; full of social ironies and a sly and biting humor’ http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/inman/
Peter Jaeger will perform a durational version of his latest book Midamble, on the lawn at G Live. The book concerns his recently completed walk on the Camino de Santiago de Compostela. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jG1EUZusDTY
Sharon Kivland is an artist who has recently been called a poet, five times, to her surprise. Her work considers what is put at stake by art, politics, and psychoanalysis. http://www.sharonkivland.com/
Lila Matsumoto’s poetry explores dailyness through allegory and literalness. http://www.shearsman.com/browse-poetry-books-by-author-Lila-Matsumoto
Tom Jenks is often verbivocovisual and always hilarious. https://www.zshboo.org/
Philip Terry uses Oulipian methods and translation to examine the crimes of bureaucracy and management. http://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=9781847772206
Scott Thurston’s current work responds to ongoing encounters with various dance and movement practices including Five Rhythms, Movement Medicine and Open Floor work. http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Thurston.php
Students from The University of Surrey have been exploring a range of poetic strategies during the workshop series Making Things Happen including the use of diaries, minimalism, Oulipo and collaboration.
Tickets go on sale April 4th – available from G-Live.
Running order TBC
An evening soiree takes place at 6.30, with the Poetry Festival joining The New Writer’s Festival (also taking place at G Live) and features a variety of readers including Tom Jenks.
Will post about this again nearer the time with reader bios but make sure you don’t miss out on six stunning if p then q poets celebrating the run of the press, and fix this date firm. For a little post about those ten years click HERE
In April 2018 if p then q will have been publishing for ten years. In addition to a special birthday celebration reading (watch this space) it seems apt to highlight some key publications, in case you’ve missed out. Just click on the links that follow to add the title to your library
Between 2008-9 if p then q magazine ran for four issues. The first two were loose-bound and housed in envelopes with gifts – pens, postcards and CDs. Issue three came out as a set of posters, specially commissioned by The Text Festival, and included posters by P. Inman, Craig Dworkin and Anne Charnock. The final issue was a pastiche of a coffee table magazine featuring Caroline Bergvall on the front cover. Issue three is still in print and available HERE.
The first if p then q perfect bound collection, 2008, was Tom Jenks’ A Priori which includes his much-lauded poem 99 Names for Small Dogs. Many other perfect bound collections have met critical acclaim. Holly Pester’s Hoofs and Chrissy Williams’ Epigraphs have both been featured on BBC Radio 3’s The Verb, Peter Jaeger’s A Field Guide to Lost Things was long-listed for The Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize and many other titles have received multiple and positive reviews. Here they are: Lucy Harvest-Clarke’s exhilarating Silveronda, Tim Atkins’ minimal sonnet sequence 1000 Sonnets, David Berridge’s search for the ‘thing’ in Bring the Thing, Derek Henderson’s poignant, systematic erasure of Ted Berrigan’s The Sonnet titled Thus &, Stephen Emmerson’s almost blank page Family Portraits, Geof Huth’s collected one word poems ntst, Tom Jenks’ follow ups to A Priori – the almost sonnet sequence * and the barmy Items, seekers of lice’s text version of Encyclops., Philip Terry’s Advanced Immorality – including his rewrites of Queneau – & Nathan Walker’s tome of web generated one-liners Action Score Generator.
In 2014 if p then q reached new heights by publishing the collected works of the great P. Inman, Written 1976-2013. This work not only collects his work in an inexpensive format but allows his work to been seen as something which both changes and, paradoxically, remains consistently constant, as Craig Dworkin points out in his lengthy and fascinating introduction.
In amongst all these titles there was still time to publish obscurities, some sold out – Michael Basinski’s Dog Music postcard, Nick-e Melville’s leaflet Junk Mail, as well as the still in print set of trump cards What’s the Best? by Joy as Tiresome Vandalism and Stephen Emmerson’s automatic poetry templates – Poetry Wholes.
2015 saw the first publication of a critical work – derek beaulieu’s captivating essays on concrete and conceptual poetry The Unbearable Contact with Poets, which also offered readers the chance to buy as a print bound copy or obtain as a pdf.
This year if p then q has pushed forwards with a new house front cover design and two new titles – Tim Allen’s re-imagining of The Columbia Granger Index to Poetry called Under the Cliff Like and Simon Taylor’s conceptual photo project of imaginary university lecturers Prospectus.
Look out for new titles in the near future from Peter Jaeger, Tom Jenks, Emma Cocker and others.
If you’ve missed any of these titles you should really check ‘em out.
After The Reading and Being Read event at Manchester Central Library on 12th November 11am-4pm (featuring Holly Pester and Michelle Green readings, talks by if p then q and Comma, and object making workshop with Tom Jenks). More HERE
is
Peter Barlow’s Cigarette, 4.30-6.30 at Waterstones, Deansgate, Manchester. This is a free event and features readings by Stuart Calton, Pansy Maurer-Alvarez, Katherine Horrex, Fokkina McDonnell
Refreshments provided
More – https://www.facebook.com/events/569451393237996/
