Horse-Woman, poetic memoir chapbook with author paintings.
Basic Bruegel Editions, Moncton, Canada, April, 2025.
A commissioned poetic memoir, Horse-Woman (Basic Bruegel Editions, Moncton, Canada, April, 2025) relates to a traumatic period earlier in Sarah’s life when she was working as a fashion model whilst painting and writing in a bohemian London bedsit. As an emotionally isolated child, with elderly parents, and an inability to verbalise, Sarah Tremlett was given a young horse to look after, which ultimately was sold against her wishes. Following her animal empathy, in this ‘stream of consciousness’ account of events, Sarah’s psyche creates a mythical, ‘otherkin’ horse persona which protects and interweaves with her experiences in the fashion world. The book contains paintings from the time, including Horse-Woman, and the cover Cowboy Riding the Horse of the World to Death is a response to how London’s poetic decay was being taken over by developers. The motif of ‘Women coming and going in a room’ from T.S. Eliot’s ‘Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ is referred to as a parallel existence, but with ambiguous connotations, since it was one of the A-level texts that ended the equine part of her life. The prologue ‘Flight’ is also a poetry film, centred on her early relationship with her mother. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfbA3rlFOtg&t=2s
https://boutique.basicbruegel.com/index.php/product/horse-woman/
for paper copies in the UK and Europe contact: [email protected]
Basic Bruegel Editions, Moncton, Canada, April, 2025.
A commissioned poetic memoir, Horse-Woman (Basic Bruegel Editions, Moncton, Canada, April, 2025) relates to a traumatic period earlier in Sarah’s life when she was working as a fashion model whilst painting and writing in a bohemian London bedsit. As an emotionally isolated child, with elderly parents, and an inability to verbalise, Sarah Tremlett was given a young horse to look after, which ultimately was sold against her wishes. Following her animal empathy, in this ‘stream of consciousness’ account of events, Sarah’s psyche creates a mythical, ‘otherkin’ horse persona which protects and interweaves with her experiences in the fashion world. The book contains paintings from the time, including Horse-Woman, and the cover Cowboy Riding the Horse of the World to Death is a response to how London’s poetic decay was being taken over by developers. The motif of ‘Women coming and going in a room’ from T.S. Eliot’s ‘Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ is referred to as a parallel existence, but with ambiguous connotations, since it was one of the A-level texts that ended the equine part of her life. The prologue ‘Flight’ is also a poetry film, centred on her early relationship with her mother. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfbA3rlFOtg&t=2s
https://boutique.basicbruegel.com/index.php/product/horse-woman/
for paper copies in the UK and Europe contact: [email protected]
Described as an innovative and unique project – Frame to Frames : Your Eyes Follow / Cuadro a Cuadros : Tus Ojos Siguen is a bilingual (English and Spanish) ekphrastic poetry book with a QR link to a 17-film screening of poetry films made from the poems. The concept of a book-film arose from Sarah Tremlett’s Frame to Frames : Your Eyes Follow ekphrastic poetry film prize, where poetry filmmakers respond to works of art. The 2023 edition II of the prize was screened at FOTOGENIA Film Festival, Mexico City in December 2023. The accompanying colour publication of the poems, synopses and stills from the QR-linked films alongside artists’ biographies, was also launched at the same time, under the imprint Poem Film Editions (co-founded by Sarah Tremlett and Hungarian poetry filmmaker and translator Csilla Toldy). The festival painting Huapango Torero (see book cover) by non-binary Mexican artist Ana Segovia was selected by Sarah Tremlett as a prompt, and was chosen by many of the artists. This painting (a revision of an original work), where a boy holds a flower up to a bull, is a call to end animal cruelty, machismo and bullfighting. The Frame to Frames project celebrates art inspiring art, translation and transmedia. So often in watching poetry films the poem passes you by, but the book allows you to press pause, really take in the poem on the page then return to the film. Here, it is possible to see how words and meaning can be transformed through the filmmaker’s process.
Screenings: FOTOGENIA, Mexico City, December, 2023; REELpoetry, Houston, April, 2024; The International Poetry Film Festival of Thuringia, Germany, May, 2024; ‘We Need to Talk about Ekphrasis Now’ Leeds Trinity University, July, 2024; Bristol Literary Film Festival, August, 2024; Maldito Festival de Videopoesía, Albacete, Spain, November, 2024. For a bilingual documentary on the project: https://vimeo.com/929116208 or
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uk0dSd6vWoY&t=2s
Sarah Tremlett, UK: Patricia Killelea, US; Tova Beck Friedman, US; Alejandro Thornton, AR; Colm Scully, IRL; Janet Lees, UK (Lois P Jones and Elena K Byrne, US); Martin Sercombe, (Thom Conroy) NZ; Pamela Falkenberg & Jack Cochran, US; Csilla Toldy, HU, IRL; Finn Harvor, CA; Javier Robledo, AR; Beate Gordes, DE; lan Gibbins, (Judy Morris); Carlos Ramirez Kobra, MX; Penny Florence, UK; Meriel Lland, UK; Ana Pantic, R.
Frame to Frames : Your Eyes Follow/Cuadro a Cuadros: Tus Ojos Siguen, Poem Film Editions, 2024. Liberatedwords.com/store
The Poetics of Poetry Film, Intellect Books and The University of Chicago Press published June 2021. All details can be found on its own page on this site and under publications at Liberated Words CIC.
Termed ‘a ground-breaking, industry bible’ the 400-page The Poetics of Poetry Film (Intellect Books, 2021) is the first publication of its kind in English, and available to date in more than 650 academic libraries alone, worldwide. Poetry film centres on poetry (spoken and /or text on screen) with the moving image and soundscape. With the merging of ancestral forms from song, visual and lyric poetry alongside the origins of film, animation and performance, the book establishes historic sources and interweaves a philosophical lens through the genre, whilst introducing many approaches in the voices of different practitioners. Chapters by leaders in the field include: Charles Olsen (Spanish and Portuguese video poets) Thomas Zandegiacomo del Bel (from ZEBRA, Berlin) and Marisol Bellusci from VideoBardo in Argentina.
‘Set to generate and influence discussions in the field for years to come, this is an encyclopaedic work on the ever-evolving genre of poetry film. It will set the benchmark for all subsequent works on the subject. ‘ Intellect Books.
See also Intellect Books and Liberated Words for reviews and endorsements.
The Poetics of Poetry Film, author & editor, Intellect Books, UK; University of Chicago Press, USA, 2021. https://www.intellectbooks.com/the-poetics-of-poetry-film
Termed ‘a ground-breaking, industry bible’ the 400-page The Poetics of Poetry Film (Intellect Books, 2021) is the first publication of its kind in English, and available to date in more than 650 academic libraries alone, worldwide. Poetry film centres on poetry (spoken and /or text on screen) with the moving image and soundscape. With the merging of ancestral forms from song, visual and lyric poetry alongside the origins of film, animation and performance, the book establishes historic sources and interweaves a philosophical lens through the genre, whilst introducing many approaches in the voices of different practitioners. Chapters by leaders in the field include: Charles Olsen (Spanish and Portuguese video poets) Thomas Zandegiacomo del Bel (from ZEBRA, Berlin) and Marisol Bellusci from VideoBardo in Argentina.
‘Set to generate and influence discussions in the field for years to come, this is an encyclopaedic work on the ever-evolving genre of poetry film. It will set the benchmark for all subsequent works on the subject. ‘ Intellect Books.
See also Intellect Books and Liberated Words for reviews and endorsements.
The Poetics of Poetry Film, author & editor, Intellect Books, UK; University of Chicago Press, USA, 2021. https://www.intellectbooks.com/the-poetics-of-poetry-film
I was one of the editors on the really fascinating Geopoetry and Geopoetics collection Earth Lines (my title!) published by the Edinburgh Geological Society. I have written more on this on the Liberated Words site, but the editors were: Norman Bissell, Philip Ringrose, Brian Whalley and we were all led by Patrick Corbett who has steered it to fruition. Norrie and I were the only non-scientist/geophysicist/geologists in the group. The crossovers and mergings between poetry and geology and other sciences has thrown up some extraordinary writing. The book contains in-depth essays on the history of poets writing on rocks and stones etc. or the history of geology in poetry, as well as revealing insights from Norrie on geopoetry and geopoetics. Familiar poets include 'stone poet' Alyson Hallett, Lynne Goldsmith, Michael McKimm, Yvonne Reddick, Sarah Acton, John Bolland, John Hegley and Ken Cockburn. Brian Roy Rosen also penned a mammoth song cycle. Dr RM Francis contributed a revealing essay on Ancestral Genius Loci and place identity which has many inspiring moments in terms of family history research and poetry. Full of illustrations, the poetic content follows a particular pattern, starting with Stratigraphy, then Geological Processes, then Geologists at work, then Geoidentity then Geopoetics. Following my suggestion, I am very pleased that Angus Miller at the Society has created an Earth Lines Online site, where audiovisual works, poetry films etc. can be found, either echoing the written poems or as separate entities. There is also a geolocation map of some of the sites that inspired the poems and so the whole process turns full circle.
Earth Lines : Geopoetry and Geopoetics
Patrick Corbett, Norman Bissell, Philip Ringrose, Sarah Tremlett, Brian Whalley
‘Earth Lines is a compilation of poetry and essays on the broadest theme of geoscience. It combines geopoetry and geopoetics and an essay on the subtle differences. The historical appearance of geoscience in poetry is reviewed. Over forty poems on themes of stratigraphy, geological process, geologists at work, geoidentity and geopoetics can be found, as can essays recording a geopoetry walk and the poetics of climate change.’
co-editor, Edinburgh Geological Society, Scotland, 2021.
https://edinburghgeolsoc.org/publications/geological-excursion-guides/
For poetry films of some of the poems, and also a geographical map of where many of the poems are situated, see the dedicated Earth Lines page at: https://edinburghgeolsoc.org/earth-lines/
As Playwright
The Forger, one-act play, produced by First Stage, Wilmington Opera House, Delaware, July, 1998.
CONTRIBUTING CHAPTERS
‘Voice and Identifying New Diegetic and Dialogic Frameworks in the Poetry Film’, Intermedial Art Practices as Cultural Resilience, Routledge, UK, 2024.
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003412762-4/voice-identifying-new-diegetic-dialogic-frameworks-poetry-film-sarah-tremlett
‘The Thorny Complexities of Classification: Tom Konyves’ the videopoem’
Poetryfilmtage catalogue, Literary Society of Thuringia, Weimar, 2023.
‘Time, Place and the Videopoetry Series’, Videopoetry / Vidéopoésie,
Valerie LeBlanc and Daniel H. Dugas, Small Walker Press, St. Catharines, Canada, 2020.
unseen_forces_and_the_protagonist’s_point_of_view_for_moving_poems.pdf
Download File
‘Experiential Storytelling: the Personal and Political Voice of Poetry Film meets Digital Media Authenticity, Profiling and the Panoptic Gaze’
Poetry Film Magazin no. 5, Literary Society of Thuringia, Weimar, 2020.
Exploring Contemplative Effects in Text-Based Video Poems
Poetry Film Magazin no. 3, Literary Society of Thuringia, Weimar, 2017.
Exploring Contemplative Effects in Text-based Video Poems, Moving Poems, Atticus Review, Poetry Film Live and Poetry Film Kanal websites, 2017.
exploring_contemplative_effects_.pdf
Download File
‘Chance Operations – a conference is born with mysterious ancestors’
on the discovery of Fluxus prints in the Bath Spa University collection
for MIX 2012 Conference, Bath Spa University, Corsham Court, Corsham, 2012
https://liberatedwords.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Chance-Operations-Sarah-Tremlett.pdf
‘Some Everybodies - Design and non-dualist filmic experience'
Experiencing Design, Behaving Media, Technoetic Arts: A Journal of Speculative Research, Intellect Books, Vol. 8 Issue 2. 2009.
‘Some Everybodies’
Ekleksographia, Wave 2 Issue Four, November 2009
[online] ed. Judith Skillman
https://wayback.archive-it.org/2269/20101222150138/http:/ekleksographia.ahadadabooks.com/skillman/authors/sarah_tremlett.html
essay ‘Matternal Philosophy – gathering, dominion and the making of a video poem’
poem ‘Some Everybodies’ – the poem of the making of the video poem
‘Matternal Philosophy, Female Subjectivity and Text in Art’
Consciousness Reframed 9, New Realities: Being Syncretic, Springer, New York, 2008.
ANTHOLOGIES
‘Stimming Spell to Ward Off Neurotypical Banter’ poem and kinetic poem
Sea of Po, Jim Andrews, Vispo, online, 2024.
Stravaig, The Scottish Centre for Geopoetics, Argyll, Scotland, UK., 2019, 2021, 2022.
‘Firewash’, Earth Lines: Geopoetry and Geopoetics, Edinburgh Geological Society, 2021.
‘The Last Green Mile’, Transitional: Otter Gallery Anthology, Chichester University, 2015.
‘Your Body Contains Traces’, Price Cut Matters, Super Farmers’ Market, Handel Street Projects, Chelsea College of Art and Design Research Group, 2011.
ESSAYS FOR LIBERATED WORDS
‘Motherland – a San Francisco state of mind – Sarah Tremlett visits the city and Lyon Street by Marc Zegans’
https://liberatedwords.com/2023/09/24/motherland-a-san-francisco-state-of-mind-sarah-tremlett-visits-the-city-and-lyon-street-by-marc-zegans/
‘Interview with Frame to Frames : Your Eyes Follow winning poet Lois P Jones’
https://liberatedwords.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/LOIS-P-JONES-interview-extract-1.pdf
‘Narratives of Climate Crisis – The British Library and MIX, Janet Lees, Csilla Toldy and Sarah Tremlett’
https://liberatedwords.com/2023/07/21/narratives-of-climate-crisis-the-british-library-and-mix-janet-lees-csilla-toldy-and-sarah-tremlett/
‘My Head is the Earth – Time, Poetry and the Poetry Film, Csilla Toldy’
https://liberatedwords.com/2023/01/08/2023-my-head-is-the-earth-time-poetry-and-the-poetry-film-csilla-toldy/
‘Utility Pole – Behind the Scenes of a Masterful Binaural Ecopoetry Film’
https://liberatedwords.com/2022/10/17/utility-pole-behind-the-scenes-of-a-masterful-binaural-ecopoetry-film/
‘Elizabeth Bishop and the Art of Losing / John D. Scott and the Art of Winning’
https://liberatedwords.com/2021/09/16/elizabeth-bishop-and-the-art-of-losing-john-d-scott-and-the-art-of-winning/
‘MIX 2019 : Experiential Storytelling – Poetry Film meets Profiling and the Panoptic Gaze’
https://liberatedwords.com/2019/07/20/mix-2019-experiential-storytelling-poetry-film-meets-profiling-and-the-panoptic-gaze/
‘Rebecca Hilton – The New Generation of Poetry Filmmakers’
https://liberatedwords.com/2019/07/16/rebecca-hilton-the-new-generation-of-poetry-filmmakers-june-2019/
‘Dave Richardson – Unchartered Terrain: the Personal Within’
https://liberatedwords.com/2019/02/04/dave-richardson-unchartered-terrain-the-personal-within/
‘’My Eyes Like Rays’ National Poetry Competition Filmpoem screening & poetry reading’
https://liberatedwords.com/2018/02/22/eyes-like-rays-2/
‘Dear Alison by Helen Mort’
https://liberatedwords.com/2018/03/10/dear-alison-helen-mort/
‘The Longest Kiss by Gerhard Rühm and Hubert Sielecki’
https://liberatedwords.com/2015/08/24/the-longest-kiss/
‘Birdfall by Adele Myers’
https://liberatedwords.com/2018/03/10/birdfall-by-adele-myers/
‘“O kas?/ Who?” (2012) from AVaspo – Lithuania Poetry and Place’
https://liberatedwords.com/2018/03/10/o-kas-who/
‘Chance Operations – A Conference is Born with Mysterious Ancestors’
MIX Conference, Bath Spa University, 2012
https://liberatedwords.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Chance-Operations-Sarah-Tremlett.pdf
ADDITIONAL OLDER WRITING
HOME PAGE SCREENING Spring 2017 Liberated Words Poetry Film events
www.liberatedwords.com
https://vimeo.com/184859490
'I Write to You Because Your Imprint's Everywhere'
From the anthology No Map Could Show Them (Chatto & Windus, 2016) poet Helen Mort has focused on women who have had a particular relevance to her and across history. In 'Dear Alison' she writes not about but to the late Derbyshire-born mountaineer Alison Hargreaves who died climbing in 1995, and whose decision to continue climbing in the face of being a young mother has left its haunting shadow in her wake.
In discussing the making of 'Dear Alison' Helen observed how for her mountaineering and writing poetry are very similar; and how the act of climbing might help shape a line of poetry on the subject – an area that Judy Kendall herself is familiar with.
The resulting poetry film, made with Dark Sky Media and UKClimbing.com sits between a form of documentary tribute through poetry, and an evocation of the very themes that preoccupy the poet herself. It is in fact a form of portrait of Helen through Alison; or, not only Helen as conduit for Alison but Alison as conduit for Helen, where we see Helen more clearly as a result. And it is also a metanarrative on the process of writing: of the struggle of putting one word after another; of literally conceiving poetry, line by line.
The film follows Sheffield-born Helen as she climbs at Stanage Edge rising dramatically above stark moorlands in the Peak District, UK. She has mentioned before that this is a place where she finds she can compose; where lines surface and images resonate, whether climbing, running or walking with her whippet Charlie.
Echoing the contrast of the landscape the filmmakers have shot Helen's authorial journey partly in extreme close-ups as if we are trying to see as close as possible into Helen's mental poetic footholds, as well as the wider rock-climbing experience. As such the filmmaking is astoundingly direct, condensed and uncompromising; it is held together editorially as a series of complete visual vignettes, rather like the serial nature of climbing itself, from ledge to ledge. Most importantly we feel we are with Helen not watching her, and as such we also are touched by and reminded of Alison's journey and spirit. Here the protagonist as writer but also climber is constantly shadowed by her subject, and as Helen moves up the rock face we sense both the struggle to write but also the struggles of women who are courageous and take risks.
With the topic of non-metaphorical poetry films still echoing in our minds we also might consider this particular work as riven with metaphorical seams (rock metaphors to discuss metaphor notwithstanding). Throughout 'Dear Alison' close-up shots of Helen's hand writing the poem punctuate the film and at the end she draws a firm but balanced line under the last word. We might think of this as jointly associative for both climber and poet: the metaphorical horizontal evocation of the joyous release from the vertical ropes and carabiners that stop a climber's fall; or equally, the poet's release from language, deliberately letting the line go; the summit having been reached. However, the analogy between mountaineering and writing ends there: the poet displays their roped words, carabinered like woven lace; the mountaineer hauls in their rope erasing all traces of the climb.
A Coda
I too was born in Sheffield, my mother's hometown, where her side of the family were painters and decorators for nearly a century and my father worked in the steelworks. Whilst Helen grew up in Chesterfield I was brought up 'down south' on the borders of Herts and Cambs, where my mother never regained social consciousness, having lost the shopkeeper spirit of camaraderie that sustained her. Seeing life through her eyes, her failed compromise, has given me an exile's fondness for the town. As such I take to Helen's writing, and her crafted phrasing, as if it were of the city itself; so I too, like Helen, am channelling identity through another woman's experience.
Helen Mort's first collection 'Division Street' (Chatto and Windus, 2013) was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Costa Award and won the Jerwood Aldeburgh Prize. Her second collection 'No Map Could Show Them' was shortlisted for the Banff festival's mountain book awards in Canada. Helen is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan. In 2017, she was a judge for the International Man Booker Prize.
Notes from TARP, Vilnius, 2015
A trip that made me remember that the soul of poetry is still alive.
Highlights for me include:
The Audio Zine - a new experience where we sat in darkness and listened to poets reading with sounds from their favourite places, alongside music/sound art culminating in what felt like a highly refined orchestral piece. The overall experience was very intimate and allowed a highly personal interpretation
Prague-based Ondrej Buddeus' performance texts comprising solo, duologue and choral elements, as well as poetry film, featured individual compositions that developed a thought or concept that may or may not lead to the next. The duologue or dialogue also involved cross-translation into Lithuanian that created in my mind a third area of performance poetry.
Alessandro Bosetti from Milan provided a mesmerising performance improvising to his own pre-recorded composition delivered via laptop from the centre of a darkened and packed room. This format creates opportunities for dialogue or sound-making with the self; repetitive phrases and long, flying bouts of fantastical storytelling.
She's A Show gave us a ranting, raving tightly produced show that pumped up the crossover between poetry and the sexuality of a rock performance.
Making haiku poems myself I was particularly interested in Cinema Fragile's workshop with haiku video poems. Their creative method relied on respecting the spirit of haiku and its rhythms through editing in 5/7/5 seconds or double time.
Apologies to the performances we missed, but I have good memories of the poetry slam and its friendly, less competitively driven spirit than the UK; of speaking at the National Gallery of Art and discussing the state of poetry film today; experiencing the friendliness of Gabriele and all working at TARP - we were given a highly interesting tour of the sights - and in general soaking up new approaches to the art of making poetry. It was very hard to leave.
HOME PAGE SCREENING Spring 2017 Liberated Words Poetry Film events
www.liberatedwords.com
https://vimeo.com/184859490
'I Write to You Because Your Imprint's Everywhere'
From the anthology No Map Could Show Them (Chatto & Windus, 2016) poet Helen Mort has focused on women who have had a particular relevance to her and across history. In 'Dear Alison' she writes not about but to the late Derbyshire-born mountaineer Alison Hargreaves who died climbing in 1995, and whose decision to continue climbing in the face of being a young mother has left its haunting shadow in her wake.
In discussing the making of 'Dear Alison' Helen observed how for her mountaineering and writing poetry are very similar; and how the act of climbing might help shape a line of poetry on the subject – an area that Judy Kendall herself is familiar with.
The resulting poetry film, made with Dark Sky Media and UKClimbing.com sits between a form of documentary tribute through poetry, and an evocation of the very themes that preoccupy the poet herself. It is in fact a form of portrait of Helen through Alison; or, not only Helen as conduit for Alison but Alison as conduit for Helen, where we see Helen more clearly as a result. And it is also a metanarrative on the process of writing: of the struggle of putting one word after another; of literally conceiving poetry, line by line.
The film follows Sheffield-born Helen as she climbs at Stanage Edge rising dramatically above stark moorlands in the Peak District, UK. She has mentioned before that this is a place where she finds she can compose; where lines surface and images resonate, whether climbing, running or walking with her whippet Charlie.
Echoing the contrast of the landscape the filmmakers have shot Helen's authorial journey partly in extreme close-ups as if we are trying to see as close as possible into Helen's mental poetic footholds, as well as the wider rock-climbing experience. As such the filmmaking is astoundingly direct, condensed and uncompromising; it is held together editorially as a series of complete visual vignettes, rather like the serial nature of climbing itself, from ledge to ledge. Most importantly we feel we are with Helen not watching her, and as such we also are touched by and reminded of Alison's journey and spirit. Here the protagonist as writer but also climber is constantly shadowed by her subject, and as Helen moves up the rock face we sense both the struggle to write but also the struggles of women who are courageous and take risks.
With the topic of non-metaphorical poetry films still echoing in our minds we also might consider this particular work as riven with metaphorical seams (rock metaphors to discuss metaphor notwithstanding). Throughout 'Dear Alison' close-up shots of Helen's hand writing the poem punctuate the film and at the end she draws a firm but balanced line under the last word. We might think of this as jointly associative for both climber and poet: the metaphorical horizontal evocation of the joyous release from the vertical ropes and carabiners that stop a climber's fall; or equally, the poet's release from language, deliberately letting the line go; the summit having been reached. However, the analogy between mountaineering and writing ends there: the poet displays their roped words, carabinered like woven lace; the mountaineer hauls in their rope erasing all traces of the climb.
A Coda
I too was born in Sheffield, my mother's hometown, where her side of the family were painters and decorators for nearly a century and my father worked in the steelworks. Whilst Helen grew up in Chesterfield I was brought up 'down south' on the borders of Herts and Cambs, where my mother never regained social consciousness, having lost the shopkeeper spirit of camaraderie that sustained her. Seeing life through her eyes, her failed compromise, has given me an exile's fondness for the town. As such I take to Helen's writing, and her crafted phrasing, as if it were of the city itself; so I too, like Helen, am channelling identity through another woman's experience.
Helen Mort's first collection 'Division Street' (Chatto and Windus, 2013) was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Costa Award and won the Jerwood Aldeburgh Prize. Her second collection 'No Map Could Show Them' was shortlisted for the Banff festival's mountain book awards in Canada. Helen is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan. In 2017, she was a judge for the International Man Booker Prize.
Notes from TARP, Vilnius, 2015
A trip that made me remember that the soul of poetry is still alive.
Highlights for me include:
The Audio Zine - a new experience where we sat in darkness and listened to poets reading with sounds from their favourite places, alongside music/sound art culminating in what felt like a highly refined orchestral piece. The overall experience was very intimate and allowed a highly personal interpretation
Prague-based Ondrej Buddeus' performance texts comprising solo, duologue and choral elements, as well as poetry film, featured individual compositions that developed a thought or concept that may or may not lead to the next. The duologue or dialogue also involved cross-translation into Lithuanian that created in my mind a third area of performance poetry.
Alessandro Bosetti from Milan provided a mesmerising performance improvising to his own pre-recorded composition delivered via laptop from the centre of a darkened and packed room. This format creates opportunities for dialogue or sound-making with the self; repetitive phrases and long, flying bouts of fantastical storytelling.
She's A Show gave us a ranting, raving tightly produced show that pumped up the crossover between poetry and the sexuality of a rock performance.
Making haiku poems myself I was particularly interested in Cinema Fragile's workshop with haiku video poems. Their creative method relied on respecting the spirit of haiku and its rhythms through editing in 5/7/5 seconds or double time.
Apologies to the performances we missed, but I have good memories of the poetry slam and its friendly, less competitively driven spirit than the UK; of speaking at the National Gallery of Art and discussing the state of poetry film today; experiencing the friendliness of Gabriele and all working at TARP - we were given a highly interesting tour of the sights - and in general soaking up new approaches to the art of making poetry. It was very hard to leave.