Talk at Dartington

I was at Dartington (lower image) on Tuesday 20 October for a talk on Darwin for students and staff there. The event was organised by Larry Lynch who directs the field of writing at Dartington. There was a good crowd for a writer's talk and discussion about working methods, the questions went on longer than the original talk. John Hall, Jerome Fletcher and Marianne Morris were there. I stayed over at Sharpham House (top image, thanks Jerome, for your generous hospitality) and was able to look around the wonderful palladian house and estate in the morning, we even saw the vineyard, dairy and walled garden: amazing views from above the river Dart down two bends in the river and north to Totnes.

TRIP TO SWEDEN

I was in Sweden last week for a meeting with the photographer John S Webb to discuss a new collaborative project. John's photo Finnvorduhals, Iceland, 1997 is the cover and frontispiece for my latest book Darwin (Acts of Language, 2009). We spent two days touring Skane by train, ferry, car and on foot, travelling round Oresund and visiting the Louisiana art museum as well as different kinds of landscape around the coast from Malmo where John lives. 

    We saw an international contemporary art show The World is Yours and a one person photography show Jacob Holdts Amerika both at Louisiana, a first rate art museum in Denmark. The Holdts show is a major documentary view of American society in the 1960s and early 70s, rough and ready photo quality with some contemporary more professional looking photos, the whole show focusing especially on race. 

NEW POETRY JOURNAL LAUNCH

The new Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry is launched this autumn with events at Birkbeck College, University of London, 7.30pm, 21 October, featuring Caroline Bergvall and Andrea Brady, and at University of Salford, 4pm, 9 December, featuring Christine Kennedy, Allen Fisher and Ian Davidson. The JBIIP is an academic journal devoted to a range of late modernist writing on poetry and poetics, and seeks the very best critical writing and reviews for publication.