Literature

“Let us be fragile for we are not the ocean”

- Eduardo Milán trans. Patrick Madden & Steven J. Stewart

My work with Poem Brut has been in its curating, in publishing a series of books and in presenting a series of performances. If I see any of that activity as my commission, it is my performances, to be found http://stevenjfowler.com/poembrut. These live works form a body of work exploring the principles of the project in living space. What is a mess between people? What is a conversation relating against its own expectation?

Since 2017 I have had the privilege of being involved with Steve Fowler’s Poem Brut project. Alongside exhibiting works, I have engaged in performances exploring the interaction of material, sound and semi-ritualistic processes. Originally no conscious intent or theoretical agenda lay behind them - what drove these performances was instinct, affect and an inclination towards uncensored creation.

I’ve been fortunate to be involved with Poem Brut, either as a performer, an artist, an audience member, as a collaborator or as a publisher, since 2017. My Poem Brut commission, which Serendip has generously supported, is a collaboration with artist Patrick Cosgrove.

My Poem Brut commission will consist of an essay and a performance, and each of these will be a ground for exploring genres of speech, customer service, embarrassment, and interruption. Time spent working in customer service (and writing whilst on shift) has alerted me to the variations in speech, the affects specific to such an environment, particularly embarrassment, annoyance and boredom. In service industry jobs, there is a great deal of forced speech; a need to at times speak unnaturally, and at others hold back your words.