The Other Room 44

Contact: otherroomeditors@googlemail.com

Manchester's experimental poetry reading series continues with performances from Frances Presley, Gavin Selerie and Chris Stephenson. Free entry. Bookstall.

Bios.

Frances Presley was born in Derbyshire, grew up in Lincolnshire and Somerset, and lives in London. She studied literature at the universities of East Anglia and Sussex, writing dissertations on Pound, Apollinaire, and Bonnefoy. She worked as a library and information specialist, in community development and anti-racism, and at the Poetry Library. Publications of poems and prose include The Sex of Art (North and South, 1988), Hula Hoop (Other Press, 1993), and Linocut (Oasis, 1997). She collaborated with Irma Irsara on a project about the fashion trade, Automatic Cross Stitch (Other Press, 2000); and with Elizabeth James in an email text and performance, Neither the One nor the Other (Form Books, 1999). Somerset Letters (Oasis, 2002), with drawings by Ian Robinson, explored community and landscape. The title sequence of Paravane: new and selected poems, 1996-2003 (Salt, 2004) was a response to 9/11/2001, and the IRA bombsites in London. Myne: new and selected poems and prose, 1976-2005, (Shearsman, 2006) takes its title from the old name for Minehead in Somerset. Lines of Sight (Shearsman, 2009) features Neolithic stone sites on Exmoor, and is part of a collaboration with Tilla Brading, Stone settings (Odyssey, 2010). Her latest book is An Alphabet for Alina (Five Seasons, 2012), a collaboration with artist Peterjon Skelt. Presley has written various essays and reviews, especially on innovative British women poets. She has co-translated the work of two Norwegian poets, Hanne Bramness and Lars Amund Vaage. Her work is included in the anthologies Infinite Difference (Shearsman, 2010), and Ground Aslant: radical landscape poetry (Shearsman, 2011). She has also contributed to a collection of poetic autobiographies, Cusp (Shearsman, 2012).

Gavin Selerie was born in London, where he still lives. He taught at Birkbeck, University of London for many years. His books include Azimuth (1984), Roxy (1996) and Le Fanu’s Ghost (2006)—all long sequences with linked units. Music’s Duel: New and Selected Poems 1972-2008 was published by Shearsman in 2009. This includes a good deal of fugitive material, besides more widely available work. Selerie has collaborated with the writer and artist Alan Halsey, notably in the book Days of ’49 (1999). His work has appeared in anthologies such as The New British Poetry (1988), Other: British & Irish Poetry since 1970 (1999) and The Reality Street Book of Sonnets (2008). His poems generally involve a layering of voices through history and landscape. He has written extensively about London, reflecting his roots (an Italian family in Soho and an English family of wood-carvers). He has been a core member of the London poetry scene since the 1970s. There is frequently a concrete dimension to his work and he was featured in the recent Visual Poetics exhibition at the Poetry Library, London. Selerie is currently working on a large project, Hariot Double, which juxtaposes renaissance and modern elements. He sometimes performs with musicians, and this work-in-progress deals partly with the British jazz scene. Further information available at: http://www.archiveofthenow.org/authors/?i=123

Chris Stephenson was one of the organisers of Leeds' controversial Open Mic night LETTERBOMB. He is also the editor of Spine (www.spinewriters.com). Collections include Holes (Arthur Shilling Press 2010), Revenge of The Mirror People (Stranger Press 2013) and Napoli Metro Bad Dream Sequence (Blart Books 2013) and No Ideas But In Things - with Stephen Emmerson (Dark Windows Press 2013).

Entry: Free

Time: 7:00pm