“Print is dead! Long live print!” – A note on the present of print

It seems that finally the furore about the ‘death of print’ is dying down. Mainly because print did no such thing. The phrase ‘death of print’ is reminiscent of swashbuckling period movies in which a rabble of sooty-looking peasants or beruffled aristocrats yell “the king is dead”. All well and good. A simple sentence with a definite meaning. Almost immediately they’d drop “long live the king” as well. Instantly everything has changed. There’s a king, so the idea of ‘king’ is still there (a constant if you will) but the body that constitutes king is entirely different. This is exactly what is going on with print. Print publishing as a concept is very much here. The reality that constitutes print publishing is becoming a whole new world.

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ADRIFT – Cape Farewell

As David Buckland, Cape Farewell founder and director, recounts stories about schooners and glaciers all I can think of is the adventurers’ clubs of old (or at least the fake old that we all remember very well). All khaki safari hats and slide projectors. Back then they were in search of the uncharted and unknown. Now, it appears these artist-adventurers are searching for change.
Cape Farewell is an organisation made up of artists and writers, devoted to creating a programme of public engagement within which to address climate change. ADRIFT is the ongoing research project of poet, Tom Chivers, commissioned by Cape Farewell.

Review: Holophin by Luke Kennard

Behind the frenzied story of cyberindustrial espionage, Holophin reads as a warning. Our wants and needs from technology haven’t changed, but the technology itself has grown far beyond our current handsets and tablets. The Holophin is a microcomputer in the guise of a tiny dolphin shaped sticker. Once attached to the person, the Holophin, equipped with its own personality, links directly into the mind. The protagonists are free to alter their perception of day-to-day life, enhance memories and install experimental software straight to their brain. But what seems to be a step towards evolution as a species soon becomes a nightmarish sprint through shifting realities and clues disguised as memories disguised as fairytales.

From Cyberpunk to Postpostcyberpunk: A look at how three generations of near-future fiction have shaped and are shaped by the era of their conception

From Cyberpunk to Postpostcyberpunk: A look at how three generations of near-future fiction have shaped and are shaped by the era of their conception

As a technologically conscious teen, I remember discovering William Gibson’s Neuromancer and falling hard into his cyberpunk world. The gritty streets and clever, but despondent characters spoke to me of the troubled future we were all heading for. I was hooked. I read all the cyberpunk I could.

Poem in Which – Amy Key

From Dover to Kent and Tyneside and now residing in London, Amy Key constantly shows herself to be a poet of considerable skill. Her poems conjure images that are at once delicate and commanding.
Amy has kindly endowed us with Poem in Which, one of her recent works, to present to you.

Read the poem after the jump

Adventures in Form – A Review

Adventures in Form, ed. Tom Chivers
reviewed by Hannah Rosefield

‘I hear ghostly Academics in Limbo screeching about form,’ wrote Allen Ginsberg in his notes to the 1959 audio recording of Howl. Lest we doubt that this is a bad thing, he follows up with ‘A word on the Academies: poetry has been attacked by an ignorant & frightened bunch of bores who don’t understand how it’s made… [and] wouldn’t know Poetry if it came up and buggered them in broad daylight.’

Ginsberg is not alone: many readers and writers of the past hundred years have regarded poetic form as the preserve of academics whose obsession with counting iambs and spotting spondees acts as a barrier to understanding. Adventures in Form: A Compendium of Poetic Forms, Rules and Constraints, beautifully produced by independent publishing house Penned in the Margins, is determined to prove form’s naysayers wrong. Featuring established (and establishment) names such as Ruth Padel and Paul Muldoon, as well as younger, lesser-known poets, it is a splendid demonstration of how the prioritization of form can provide a freedom absent from free verse.

Stuck For Words This Weekend?

Well, be stuck no more! Two great literary events are gracing the coming evenings. First up is Rubix, a spoken word night from one of the Roundhouse’s poetry collectives. Then, from the publisher and live literature powerhouse Penned in the Margins, a night of acts in response to the August Riots.

read all about it after the jump.

Meanwhile…

As we recently mentioned Tom Chivers of Penned in the Margins, it would be very topical indeed to highlight his latest poetic offering. The work in question is called The Island of Gates and is in response to the announcement of a sculpture to mark the site of the long-removed city gate at Aldgate.

Read it on his blog here.

Review: Penned in the Margins – Iain Sinclair, John Wilkinson, Emily Critchley & Rob Stanton

Iain Sinclair

On Tuesday, I had the privilege of attending the latest event from the pioneering literary press, Penned in the Margins. Now, I might seem a little biased in this review as I was asked along to provide a musical backdrop to the night’s proceedings. As an almost insider, I’m bound to say that the night was a roaring success. (It was.) I’ll try to be as objective as possible.