Saturday 11 July 2020

A Leap in the Dark 30

A Leap in the Dark 30   8pm  Saturday 11th July 2020

      Open mic night



Many thanks to all members of tonight’s Company, who generously signed up at short notice when the Pale Usher sent up a distress flare after the sudden rearrangement of the planned Leap.  

And what a Company! A welcome return for the Northern Irish poet Paula Cunningham (who made such a memorable debut on last week’s Leap), a Letter from Huddersfield by regular Leaper Kevin Boniface, Licorice, a striking new novel from Bridget Penney, more poetry from Christodoulos Makris, Rhys Trimble and Julian Stannard, and two work-in-progress readings by Gerry Feehily.

There's no charge for taking part in A Leap in the Dark so please make a donation, no matter how large, to The Trussell Trust.



The Programme


1  The Pale Usher welcomes you

2  Paula Cunningham reads her poetry

3  Kevin Boniface: An Inventory of the Family Rubbish Nos 23-27

4  Bridget Penney on her new novel Licorice

5  Gerry Feehily reads the first of two extracts from his work-in-progress 
   Kings of the Wild Frontier



Interval 



Christodoulos Makris (Dublin)

7  Gerry Feehily (Paris)

8  Rhys Trimble (Bethesda)

9  Julian Stannard (Southampton)

10 Roland Bates (London) 

11 The Pale Usher signs off



The Company


Roland Bates has been a bookseller in more or less salubrious locations since about 2000. He can be found in Kirkdale Books in South London: https://kirkdalebookshop.com

Kevin Boniface is an artist, writer and postman based in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire. Over the years his work has taken the form of zines, exhibitions, artists’ books, short films and live performances. He is the author of Round About Town, published by Uniformbooks. kevinboniface.co.uk

Paula Cunningham’s Heimlich's Manoeuvre, from smithdoorstop, was shortlisted for the Fenton-Aldeburgh, Seamus Heaney Centre, & Strong Shine 1st Collection Prizes.  Poems have appeared in ‘Best British Poetry’ 2016, & have won national & international prizes. She has also written short fiction and placed 2nd in the 2014 Costa short story award.  She is very slowly working on her second collection and attempting the odd essay.

Gerry Feehily is a London-born, Ireland-raised author, translator and journalist based in Paris since the 1990's. He is the author of Fever (2007) and Gunk (2014). His fiction has appeared in 3am Magazine, and most recently in the anthology We'll Never Have Paris, edited by Andrew Gallix (2019). He is Europe editor at the Parisian magazine of global affairs Courrier International.

Christadoulos Makris described by the RTÉ Poetry Programme as “one of Ireland’s leading contemporary explorers of experimental poetics”, has published three books of poetry, most recently this is no longer entertainment (Dostoyevsky Wannabe, 2019), as well as several pamphlets, artists’ books and other poetry objects. Recent commissions and residencies include the Irish Museum of Modern Art and Maynooth University. He is the poetry editor at gorse journal.

Bridget Penney lives in Brighton. Her most recent book Licorice was published by Book Works earlier this year. www.bridgetpenney.co.uk

Julian Stannard lived and taught for many years in Genoa. His most recent poetry book – with artwork by Roma Tearne – is Average is the New Fantastico (Green Bottle Press). CBe publishes his What Were You Thinking? He co-edited a CBe book about Michael Hofmann, The Palm Beach Effect. A film of his poem ‘Sottoripa’ (about a district of Genoa) is on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/81617966

Rhys Trimble was born in Zambia in 1977. He is a bilingual poet, text artist, performer, drummer, editor, critic, collaborator, shaman, staff-wielder and shoutyman based in Wales. He is interested in avant-garde poetry and Welsh metrics. He has authored more than 15 books of poetry in Wales, England, India and the US since 2010, including Swansea Automatic, Anatomy Mnemonics for Caged Waves (US) and Hexerisk. Since 2008 he has edited the experimental poetry e-zine ctrl+alt-del.

The Pale Usher is David Collard, who organises these gatherings.

The pale Usher—threadbare in coat, heart, body, and brain; I see him now. He was ever dusting his old lexicons and grammars, with a queer handkerchief, mockingly embellished with all the gay flags of all the known nations of the world. He loved to dust his old grammars; it somehow mildly reminded him of his mortality.
  Moby-Dick by Herman Melville



The next Leap in the Dark on Friday 17th July will feature:


- Spring Journal canto XVIII by Jonathan Gibbs, read by Michael Hughes

- Yoga with Guru Dave - the return of the swami’s swami 

- Seen From Here: readings by Tim Etchells and Vlatka Horvat

- Sam Mills, author of The Fragments of My Father in conversation with 
  Susanna Crossman 

- A Letter from Paris by Gerry Feehily

- Ping Henningham presents Tyrannosaurus rex (Round 2)

- Eley Williams on her new novel A Liar’s Dictionary



Stay well!




The Pale Usher



The next Leap in the Dark will be on Friday 17th July and will feature:


- Spring Journal canto XVIII by Jonathan Gibbs, read by Michael Hughes

- Yoga with Guru Dave, the return of the swami’s swami 

- Seen From Here: readings by Tim Etchells and Vlatka Horvat

- Sam Mills, author of The Fragments of My Father in conversation with 
  Susanna Crossman 

- A Letter from Paris by Gerry Feehily

- Ping Henningham presents Tyrannosaurus rex (Round 2)

- Eley Williams on her new novel A Liar’s Dictionary


Stay well!


The Pale Usher

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