This photo of SJ Fowler comes as “Bear as the Bear”. Best wishes to Jack London.

By Julia Schiefer

The atmosphere of the “Hay Festival” in 2014 is buoyant and somewhat noisy. One could imagine that outside of the small frame of the youtube picture there could be people passing by, mumbling to each other, going out or in or stay for a while before moving on. Yet, it is poet/artist Steven J Fowler reading out his poems, that the screen is showing.  Approaching the microphone, he says: “Oh my god, I just realized I am in Mexico” and right in this moment a technician appears out of nowhere to fix the height of his microphone as if he wanted to answer: Yes, my friend, here you are. Before reading out his poetry he states in a brutally honest fashion that he thanks “whoever  insane person who decided to invite me” from London to Mexico, who invited a guy who writes poetry. A  guy who is actually very restless about organizing collaborative poetry events with now over “100 events in over a dozen countries”, and has published just recently his sixth book of his own poetry {Enthusiasm}, doing exhibitions, and before he has been a poet actually was a martial artist.

Stevens project

Steven’s efforts are indeed relentless. On the website of The Enemies Project I count over 40 Events in 2014 and over 25 in 2013. The growing number shows how the projects have grown so very rapidly in the last three years and that’s also thanks  to Stevens commitment. As you look closer you will notice that there are several series of events with different approaches, e.g. the Camarade series with two poets collaborating or Kakania which is a project with Austrian authors on historical persons. However, when I asked Steven how he would choose a concept for the event he answered that he had none. I guess, it is more a setting the stage than a model. Which is obviously very applicable.

Currently, Steven is preparing an exhibition called “Mahu: an exhibition” where he will show works which step out of treating texts as a monolithic meaning giver bound to paper or having a unique poet’s voice. The stress on fluxus as opposed to fixed and conceptualized meaning is expressed in the text disappearing with the exhibition. It vanishes – or reveals how time is abstract. It plays with the concept of durability by employing abstraction as a part (!) of the narrative.

Being avant-garde

[pullquote align=”right” color=”” class=”” cite=”” link=””]We are very rarely looking towards the future in literature, because we truly live in utterly new times.[/pullquote]

Applying new techniques of writing, producing or presenting poetry Steven also sees his roots in the avant-garde. That is according to Steven that one is essentially rootless in tradition. But what is being avant-garde then, I asked him. “The term is a military one, it means to be the advanced unit, the scouts, the first in the line of fire. Avant-garde is not a term which has any specific connection with a singular political view or historical period. It is about being of the now by looking towards the future.” That means to be but highly sensitive to new developments, new trends or new forms of social engagements to combine poetry with. It is this newness which informs Steven’s work. Can you please be new? It is not about being devoted to a historically defined group like Dada or Futurism. That is by the way the reason which according to Steven for literature being somewhat dusty. It is also not about abandoning historical movements for good. The very notion of newness which constitutes avant-gardistic production is nowadays mainly connected to technology and forms of social engagement, he says in another interview. That demands something different than perhaps what was the German postmodernism about – a subject fluid in his own culture being able to juxtapose easily parts and pieces of cultural heritage. Being then open for original and innovative techniques and developments, being open to experiment as well as to admit to non-understanding which is crucial for the process.

That is by the way the reason which according to Steven for literature being somewhat dusty. It is also not about abandoning historical movements for good. The very notion of newness which constitutes avant-gardistic production is nowadays mainly connected to technology and forms of social engagement, he says in another interview. That demands something different than perhaps what was the German postmodernism about – a subject fluid in his own culture being able to juxtapose easily parts and pieces of cultural heritage. Being then open for original and innovative techniques and developments ,being open to experiment as well as to admit to non-understanding which is crucial for the process.

Dialectically speaking avant-garde is also about perceiving boundaries in a way to explore them and revealing them. By disturbing common horizons of understanding they are reintroduced again as things lingering behind. In Steven’s projects a lot of different authors come together in a collaborative act with various different languages, heritance, cultural backgrounds and so on. It is also this exchange which he takes inspiration from, which gives him new insights. As I was asking him what “European literature” could mean, he first took into account that this notion is very much connected to each and everyone’s culture.

Bear as the Bear

[pullquote align=”left” color=”” class=”” cite=”” link=””]… or one can scroll through some amazing research being done now at the MediaLab at MIT for example, and discover things like multi-sensory data processing or neurobeaming, that will change how we experience all information and language.[/pullquote]

Steven has no agenda but wants to have things opened up. To obstruct meaning and to stretch boundaries, rearrange things found or to take into poetry what isn’t poetry so that another quality possibly emerges – you could call that Stevens agenda. And at the same time he is brutally honest. This kind of honesty you need to not get lost in meaninglessness or pure experimentation for the sake of playing. Same situation again: He is supposed to read his poetry in Serbia at The Ninth International Novi Sad Literature Festival 2014. Again he points out how very absurd it is that someone is travelling, or is actually been invited to read some poetry. Then to escape an improvised story which leaves the audience dead at the end, he hurriedly cancels it by announcing to eventually read his poetry which earns him some applause. And he takes this applause nobly to be the applause not for him stating this but for the audience having been confronted with the possibility of their deaths even congratulating them about their good relationship to their own death. This time no technician comes to make something real again (thanks god) but he will read out a poem about violence and the threatening paralization as if to reinforce his performance.

Photos by Steven J Fowler