In advance of my show at the London Literature Festival, there was a little interview (and big picture) of me in the Sunday Observer Magazine. Come see me for a glass of port and some poems while I’m in London 31 May – 1 June.

I recently joined Steve Wasserman on his podcast “Read Me Something You Love” to discuss a poem by Michael Burkard, “Tooth”. In it we talk about the following: Unfolding Poems; Illogical Teeth; The Lost Son; Coming Open To Closed Poems; She is Fucking/Human (Divergent Synapses Firing); The Misery That Is Going To Pass.

[SPL] May 2013: Erín Moure

Erín Moure discusses her recent book The Unmemntioable, an exploration of her complex family history and subsequent travel to western Ukraine. In conversation with Ryan Van Winkle at the StAnza Poetry Festival, where she was the poet in residence, they discuss “how you can identify who you are and where you come from when your mother says you come from nowhere.” And nowhere, she discovered, was western Ukraine.

[CultureLaser] Hannah Silva

Writer & theatre maker Hannah Silva discusses her work. Catching up at the StAnza Poetry Festival in St Andrews, they discuss her relationship to sound poetry, the influence of her musical training on how she approaches her work and how she deals with politics and modern political rhetoric by manipulating voice as sound and laying disparate elements together. The podcast features her pieces ‘Prosthetics’, ‘Gaddafi’, ‘Strike’ and an excerpt from ‘The Disappearance of Sadie Jones’. Catch up with her on Twitter @hannahsilvauk. We also include a brand new track from Dan Seizure, Finsbury Park.

[CultureLaser] #NeedNothing Returns: Sleep Tight Bobby Cairns

We revisit the #NeedNothing campaign which we featured on our second ever episode and find out about their new project, #sleeptightbobbycairns. We’ll leave it to director Rob Jones and writer Michael O’Neill to explain more about their satirical investigation into the world of activism – including excerpts from their latest production with Millie Turner. Catch it at the Tron Theatre in Glasgow, 14th – 18th May 2013. We also feature a track from Three Blind Wolves’s forthcoming album, Hallelujah For The Old Machine.

Recently a series of my poems have been translated into Bulgarian by Open Book Magazine. They are:

Untitled (Howe)

Oregon Train

My 100-Year Old Ghost

summer nights, walking

Untitled (Lincoln)

The Apartment

Waiting for the Ocean.

If you are a Bulgarian speaker, enjoy! Thanks to Literature Across Frontiers for making this happen.

Commiserate is a monthly experiment in poetic collaboration.

This Month: MEHMED (MEŠA) BEGIC

An Elementary Sequence in Four Parts

I.

BLACK WATER BLUES

The jar returns to the well till it breaks -
i heard her saying that soft as water
without knowing how hard
water could be
Crickets cry their song again
you know the song it goes on
and on remember me when all is gone
The water near my house is often yellow
the water of my father’s house is grey
my love’s water is red she calls it blood
She says It is easy to make a list
of what was lost
or who was abandoned;
chocolate melting in the sun,
stones baking in the heat,
water black below light.
and lights are dim as comes the night
So, you broke a jar, so what, he says
you gonna buy the blouse
will I write all over it
the black waters blues
You gonna invent the summer
and break the days which ran away
and for good over the sweetlife hills
It’s easy to point the finger
it’s easy to make a list
of all that was lost or who’s to blame, i heard
her say, as if anything is different when you fall

II.

WATER WITH WIND

It gets complicated sometimes
the air is a desert
with no sound
It gets easy sometimes
the water is warm
do we fly or should we dive in
to the yellow forest of thoughts
growing on your weary little hands
birds of those woods
know it is time to sleep
despite pigeons racing
tiny worries
on their legs,
elsewhere
the sky; a whole net of stars
as if romance was something
we had never done before

III.

WATER WITH WIND, LATER FIRE

The wind slams the wood
door closed like a mouth
slapped in the rain
Quiet night with no lights
The fire begins inside
an old dry mattress
rolls over and hugs
the whole house to ash
Where does one go from there
Like you want to go anywhere
What will they think of you
when your loving
misshaped body is found
forming this coal metal thing
will they be able to tell what is what
it is easy knowing nothing
with the lights out i was just a normal guy
and then I woke up and was
still just a normal guy
seeing half a woman
who thought she was seeing
two men and all was right
with the world. Night. Ships.
Stars. Water with wind, later fire
soon the earth
which I’m told, we will inherit
when you are dust
who will separate you from the wind

IV.

EARTH

No man can die twice but the grief
we cause returns like a sweater,
can be mended. And dirt can fill
that hole with short breaths

of intention between panic
and thrill. And like those hints of pain
the earth has neither a beginning
nor is an end getting close.

What has been spoiled
through man’s fault

can be made good again
through man’s work. You knock
on the walls to call out the ghosts.

And you’ll throw a pebble

down a well just to hear
where the bottom is
but it just keeps going

for so long you remember a crystal
and it’s never there when you need it.
Some summits carry names, stall minds

but everything we need to know about time
is in the mountain which has moved
slowly around the earth again.

*

Ryan says: When Mesa and I started this, I didn’t realise how fast and good it would be. We started with the water and finished with earth in a drunken night of back and forth email between Edinburgh and Nicaragua where he now lives. We had no intention of doing a sequence of any sort, but I think we both enjoyed the volley so much we couldn’t stop. The last time I saw Mesa it was at a bus station in Sarajevo. I was wearing stupid sunglasses. He, as always, looked excellent. You can find out more about him on his webpage.

Mesa says: It was natural, our writing experience. Damn, we should write a book. Tell the publishers to find us. <and the glasses were not stupid, they were full of love (parade)>

– Read More From Commiserate 2013 –

–

Additional Czech news: I’ll be performing at the Prague Book Fair on Friday 18 May, also in association with Literature Across Frontiers.

Prague Book Fair

Friday 18/5/2013, 18:00 hrs

Palace of Industry, Prague Exhibition Grounds (Holešovice), Poetry Room – Right Wing (Balcony, Right).

Ryan van Winkle, an american who lives in Edinburgh, is well known for his innovative approach to performing poetry using multimedia, new technologies and theatrical arrangements. He transforms  poetry into theatre using video clips, podcasts and other ways of communicating with the audience.
Interpreted: Czech, English

Literature Across Frontiers

Tuesday 14/5/2013, 20:00 hrs

Presented by Alexandra Büchler in Czech and English
Divus (South Wing), Bubenská 1, Praha 7
Literature Across Frontiers presents two poets from Britain known for taking innovative approaches to performing poetry using multimedia, new technology, and theatre settings. Zoë Skoulding’s performance features sound art and photographs by Alan Holmes, with recordings of her poetry in Czech translation. Ryan van Winkle, an American settled in Edinburgh, makes poetry into theatre and uses video clips, podcasts and other ways of communicating with audiences.

Hope to see you there!

This Friday artist Michelle Elrick will be in The Forest Café with “Notes from the Fort”, a series of performance installations that create intimate places in unfamiliar environments through the play act of fort building. Using only existing structures and a suitcase full of hand-crafted materials, each fort is constructed, inhabited, noted and dismantled in a live poetic document of sense of place and the origins of home.

She will be double-billing with Viewmaster, myself and Dan Gorman’s poetic slideshow for your eyes and ears only. You choose the journey and we will bring you on a sometimes surprising, sometime surreal, tour accompanied by the ambient sounds of the man they call Dan. Performances are one-to-one-to-Viewmaster, and last under 10 minutes. A rare chance to travel, listen and pause in one beautiful space.

What: Notes From the Fort / Viewmaster

Where: The Forest Café, 141 Lauriston Place, Edinburgh

When: 10 May, 8pm

How Much: FREE

In case you’ve missed them in the past few weeks, here’s the most recent editions of the Culture Laser podcast for you listening pleasure. Brew up a steamy cuppa tea, put your feet up and enjoy!

Paper Trails with Mandy Haggith

I got rid of my printer a few weeks ago because I’d stopped using it. So is everyone reducing the amount of paper they use? Considering the sheer volume of books and magazines cluttering my house plus my own scribbles, I obviously have a very special relationship with paper, and so I was pleased to sit down to talk with activist and writer Mandy Haggith, author of Paper Trails: From Trees to Trash – the True Cost of Paper, a book about where all the paper we use comes from. She shares a number of alarming statistics- including the fact that catalogue retailer Argos used to be responsible for 1 per cent of the UK’s total consumption of paper. We also feature the track ‘Ghosts’ from Hiva Oa.

Elena Alexieva

During a recent trip to Sofia, Bulgaria for Literature Across Frontiers, I put out a call for interesting people to meet and was put in touch with the Bulgarian writer Elena Alexieva. Although initially described to me as a crime writer, I soon discovered she was much more than that. I also caught up with poet and translator Ivan Hristov while he was in Sofia and we feature one of his songs, Rado Fair Rado.

Richard Holloway

Art can change lives, change societies and start revolutions. So we find out on this week’s episode featuring broadcaster and writer Richard Holloway, chairman of Sistema Scotland, a charity set up in the belief that children can gain huge social benefits by playing in a symphony orchestra. Richard also discusses his work with LGBT Youth Scotland and some of the reasons why he stepped down as Bishop of Edinburgh. We also feature a poem from Jacob Sam-La Rose (@jsamlarose) about young people describing their own lives in a poetic way. And we squeeze in the fantastic track ‘I Believe’ from Edinburgh based singer Lake Montgomery.

In one fascinating conversation, Singaporean poet Alvin Pang discusses language identity, Singapore literature and poetic practice with at the StAnza 2013 poetry festival. Alvin reads his poems and a selection from his anthology TUMASIK: Contemporary Writing from Singapore. Alvin has a great sense of humour, a marvelous reading voice, and shares some razor-sharp perspectives on the political power of both his poetry and its playfulness. Elsewhere, he talks about how Seamus Heaney influenced his work, his grandmother’s deadly Cantonese aphorisms and he reads a poem of his written in the distinctive unofficial language of Singapore, Singlish, the existence of which, he argues, has huge potential political power. I learned a lot, and if you click the play button, I just know you will too.

My poems “There is No Library for What I Know of Books”, “Untitled (Ristovic)” and “Opinions, Not Facts” have all been published by the handsome 3:AM Magazine. They involve travel, making out, fights, books & hypothetical sex (is there any other kind?).

The site features writing of many stripes, and you can while away many a wistful hour reading artists’ thoughts on a great many topics. It is humbling company, and I urge you to take your computing device for a spin around the 3:AM poetry section.

Exciting news! This May I’m heading to continental Europe to join our friends Zoë Skoulding, Alan Holmes and the good people at Literature Across Frontiers for a joint English/Czech reading. If you’re in Prague this Spring/Summer come and join us!

Literature Across Frontiers

Tuesday 14/5/2013, 20:00 hrs

Presented by Alexandra Büchler in Czech and English
Divus (South Wing), Bubenská 1, Praha 7
Literature Across Frontiers presents two poets from Britain known for taking innovative approaches to performing poetry using multimedia, new technology, and theatre settings. Zoë Skoulding’s performance features sound art and photographs by Alan Holmes, with recordings of her poetry in Czech translation. Ryan van Winkle, an American settled in Edinburgh, makes poetry into theatre and uses video clips, podcasts and other ways of communicating with audiences.

Hope to see you there!

On Tuesday 23 April (which is only WORLD BOOK NIGHT) I’ll have the great pleasure of chairing an evening with Scottish novelist, poet, writer, musician and all round good guy Andrew Greig at Edinburgh’s own Blackhall Library. Andrew is a marvellous writer whose recent play Found at Sea had a sell-out run at the Traverse Theatre and whose upcoming novel Fair Helen will be launched at the Edinburgh Festival this summer.

Andrew will be reading from his latest work & we’ll be chatting about his books, poems, career and upcoming releases. It’s going to be great fun and we’ll all have a merry old time.

What: Andrew Greig

Where: Blackhall Library, 56 Hillhouse Rd, Edinburgh, Midlothian EH4 5EG

When: Tuesday 23 April, 6.30pm

How Much: Free!

Hope to see y’all there!