blankpages Issue 43 by Blank Media Collective

Issue 43 Feb 2012

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Issue 43 Feb 2012

you are listening to

CONTENT Get in touch / Welcome

Spotlight - Becky Allen

Throwing Notes at Neighbours by Bug & Leaf

Fiction - AJ Kirby

cover art By Becky Allen

Submit Every month we showcase writers, artists and musicians who deserve to share their work with the wider arts community and the public as a whole. blankpages is about supporting all artists, not just writers. If your work crosses genres, that’s fine with us. We’re looking for talented creatives with a unique style and ability to produce interesting pieces. New works are preferred, but previously published pieces will be considered. For further information on the submissions guidelines, CLICK HERE

Spotlight - Ross Phillips

Blankverse - Tutku Barbaros

This month’s mp3 - Bug & Leaf

Feature - Kaffeeklatsch

Blankpicks - ‘ANBAD’

Blank Media recommends

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welcome blankpages has been going for a mammoth 43 issues now and I’d like to take this opportunity to share some future plans with you. We’ve decided to make 2012 our year (apocalypse pending) and develop some new and exciting avenues for blankpages to take over the coming months (you’ll hear more in due course). This has brought us to the bold decision that from this issue we will be publishing bi-monthly, so after this one your next will be April 1st and so on. I feel we’re in a position to really take this project and the team to some great and interesting places but we can only do that if we give ourselves the time. So if you’d be so kind as to bear with us during our transition, before you know it we’ll be all transformed and you’ll remember with fondness our lovely monthly PDF. See you on the other side!

John Leyland Editor

spotlight

Becky Allen

ecky Allen’s drawings respond to the different states of consciousness. Her exploration of fact and the objective aim to expose the subjective and intangible. She aims to visualise what cannot be seen yet is experienced by everyone. Allen’s recent work has been influenced by an understanding of the science of sleep and her research has led her to acquiring neurological data to aid her practice and reveal the dream state. With no objective way to measure, record or preserve dreams, the imagery she creates aims to represent the juxtaposition of her data

findings with the ethereal and surreal narratives created by our brain whilst asleep. Allen approaches these ideas with intricate line work and mark making techniques. This practice aims to display the delicate and precious nature of dreams and also reflect the many different ways in which they can be interpreted. Her work takes inspiration from the illustrations of neuroscientist Santiago Ramón y Cajal accompanied by an exploration of Mythology. In particular, she is fascinated by the personification of night, Nox, and The Gateways of Horn and Ivory that distinguish types of dream.

Babel

Spandrel

Decending the staircase

Nuclei

Process

Based in London, Becky Allen gained a BA in Graphic Design from at Camberwell College of Arts and is currently studying for a MA in Visual Communication at the Royal College of Art. Working with 2 dimensional practices her current work looks at surface, focusing on extreme detail. She will be exhibiting at Art Work Space, London in March 2012.

For further information about Becky Allen and her work, follow the links below: www.beckyallen.co.uk www.eighteen-twelve.blogspot.com/ www.artworkspace.co.uk/becky-allen.php

ficton

AJ Kirby

Sapling I’m not my favourite person. In fact I’m pretty far down that list.You might tell me I’m not looking after myself any more. Other people notice. I can see it in the eyes of the gardener – at least I presume he’s a gardener, on account of the gloves, the earthy smell he gives off – as he unlocks the big, wrought iron gates. He looks as though he might say something, ask me whether I really have a right to be here. I see the battle going on behind his eyes. But then the training kicks in. No doubt they’ve given everyone who works here, even down to the lowliest gardener, a halfday grief-counselling ‘introduction’ so that they don’t greet people like me, in my man’s coat, my tired jeans and my scuffed shoes, with any kind of hostility. Now I just see pity

in his eyes and you know I can’t stand pity. It’s just another word for condescension. He unlocks the gates, pockets the chunky padlock, shuffles his feet, and then points me the right way. To you. Says nothing. Looks as though he doesn’t trust himself to speak. I walk up the path dragging the spade behind me. It drrrrrinnnnggs against the concrete, drowning out the gardener’s small portable radio which is playing Mamma Mia by Abba. The training clearly hasn’t stretched so far that it tells him the song is not the wisest thing to let people like me hear. I deliver you. And then I just kneel there picking mud

from underneath my fingernails. After checking over my shoulder to see whether the gardener is about, I whisper a quick hello, welcome you into the world. I feel it important to explain why Mark isn’t here. Work, I lie. On the way back home, I pass a playground and I look at all the fat little things trolling around and I know I’m supposed to say aw, aren’t they lovely, but I don’t. Because they are nothing like you. Achingly fragile, almost bending in the wind, and yet proud at the same time.

a proper, honest to goodness being has been swift. I’m proud. And sure I never got any scan photos I could flick round the office, round my friends like so many trumps in a hand of cards, I never saw your journey begin within me, but still it feels like we’re joined umbilically. I can almost feel your roots wrapping round my feet as I sit, or stand, or lie. They claim me, name me. Mother, you say.Your first word. And I feel a Ready Brek glow in my stomach.

Fourth or fifth time I come, I decide I have to give you a name. To help us bond better. I name you Genevieve, Genny for short. Most of my friends have named their children for plants, flowers, or trees.We have them marked on the big calendar in the kitchen, all the birthdays. Rowan, Ash (ley) are the boys; Lily, Rose, the girls... I wonder if there’s any irony in naming you for a person. I start to bring you little strips of ribbon for your branches. Baubles sometimes if it is a special occasion. At Christmas, I douse you in tinsel and you roll your eyes because I’m squiffy on ginger wine.

For a while, I bring tape, measure your growth so that when I got home I can plot your journey on the kitchen wall by the fridge. Mark gives me evils with every new pencil-line I score into the wallpaper. But he doesn’t actually say anything, has lost the power of speech since… Since our own journey came to an end. I can’t bring the tape any more though; you’re getting too tall. Shooting up. I’d like to bring my mother here so she could say, in the fashion of grandmothers since time immemorial, my, haven’t you grown? But I won’t bring my mother here because she won’t say that at all. She’ll just clasp my hand and whisper urgently into my ear and lie. She’ll lie and say that deserts can be fertile places too.

Spring and you’re growing, Genny. Growing so fast now I can almost hear your joints creaking loose as I sit, watching you. Your journey from seed to embryo to

I see the gardener every day now. He’s a busy man. If

he’s not here, he can be found doing the weeding in the graveyard at St. James’ Church, so I suppose that means he does the full journey. I suppose it is his job to turn the earth before people like me come. Making it easier for us to dig and plant. He’s the gardening equivalent of the doctors at LGI who turned the earth inside me, hoping they’d make me more fertile. We’ve never exchanged more than a few words, the gardener and I. Never more than a simple, ‘you’re early’ as I wait, or a ‘thank you’ as he swings the gate open, or a ‘they’ve been crying out for this rain, you know,’ as I fumble with an umbrella. Usually, I can see him coming along the neat, orderly rows, his council-issue high-vis orange vest standing out against all the green and I can hide. I don’t like it that he might hear me talking to you. I talk to you all the time now, like a regular Prince Charles. I figure I’ve got some explaining to do. So you can understand why I can’t take you home. ‘They call this place a nursery,’ I say. ‘Only, it’s not like a real nursery. More like a boarding school.’ They don’t really call it a nursery. They call it a Fertility Forest. It’s for couples like Mark and I who now know, beyond a shadow, that they can’t have children. We are supposed to plant trees instead, watering-can all our parental instincts into the ground around you. I thought it

was a silly idea at first. Mark still does. Sometimes, I press my cheek against your body to feel the warmth. And I swear I can hear a heart beat. Though it might be something else. It might simply be my yearning that I hear, like when I pick up a shell in Leeds and hear the sea. I wonder what happens to you at night? Are you cold? I will bring blankets from the airing cupboard and I won’t care if the gardener gives me (or you) funny looks. I wrap my arms around you and tell you about my dad, your grandad. He used to say cut him open and he’d have ‘PEEL’S ENGINEERING’ written through him like a stick of Blackpool. If anyone cut into you, your rings will show my name. The duration of my muddy-kneed wait. The weight of my filthy hope. One day I arrive at the gates and the gardener doesn’t say ‘you’re early’. Instead he asks me about why I don’t bring the tape any more. I have to tell him that it is because I can no longer reach your top. The gardener seems to slip himself onto stand-by. As he thinks of an adequate response, he scratches absently at his no doubt healthy balls through his loose canvas trousers. Mark always wore tight-fitting suit trousers. It was one of the many reasons

Illustration by Michael Thorp

the doctors put forward as to why we couldn’t conceive. Stupid reasons. Like he spent too much time on exercise bikes at the gym. Like I didn’t eat enough fish. Like we were both too old. ‘I could give it a trim,’ he says finally, gesturing to a horror-film pair of secateurs which are propped up by his wheel barrow. And maddeningly, I find I’m crying. It’s not the fact I can’t bear for him to cut you, just the casual ‘it’. I have to quickly explain that it is hayfever. I ask whether he’s been cutting the grass, claiming that cut grass always sets me off. He doesn’t believe me. I can tell. But wouldn’t it just be my luck if I did get hayfever? Another biological, genetic nonsense getting in the way of my becoming what I want to be. ‘I’ve got hayfever too,’ says the gardener. ‘I’ve got some tablets…’ And I feel like laughing in his face. Because how can he be a gardener and have hayfever? I don’t even dignify him with an answer to his question, simply scurry away into the rows. To you.

to bring you into the world either. Now he barely even bothers to hide the fact that the after-work drinks aren’t drinks at all, but him off seeing another woman. I can smell her on him. On his shirts which he still leaves out for me to wash despite the fact he’s virtually camping at home now, sleeping on the sofa, raiding the fridge after I’ve gone to bed, leaving in the morning before I’ve even shuffled out of my pit. I’m glad you’re boarding at the forest so you don’t have to see it. I wouldn’t want you blaming yourself. Teenagers are very touchy. I’ve read about it on the internet. And you, Gen-Gen, are now, officially, a teenager.You’re certainly tall like one. Awkward too; gangly, like you’ve yet to grow into your limbs properly. Summer, you spotted up too. Tiny buds erupting everywhere. Autumn you hung your head as though you were ashamed to be seen by your friends talking so earnestly with your scruff-bag of a mother. Winter, when I had to wrap myself up in that sleeping bag of a Parka, I tried to read you all your old favourite books. You sneered at Peter Rabbit and Mrs Tiggy-Winkle now though.

Mark couldn’t plant the seed in me because of exercise bikes and suit trousers and too many after-work drinks. And he couldn’t put his shoulders into turning the earth

Another Spring, and your journey into adulthood is almost complete. The gardener surprises me one day with a ladder. He’s ‘brung it in special’, he says, so I can measure

you up again. I don’t see the point though. Now you’re taller than the ceiling in the kitchen so I can’t mark it off. And besides, Mark is talking of selling the house. He needs to release some funds, he says, so he can buy a new place with the new woman. Mark’s a distant memory now, like the sea. It means I have more time to spend here, with you. It also means I don’t have to answer all the awkward questions. The gardener has started bringing his dog to the forest.Tommy, he calls it. He treats that dog too well. He’s over-indulgent. I watch him as he feeds it his sandwiches straight from the Tupperware tub. He doesn’t chide it when it cocks its legs against some of the other trees. I do though. When it comes up, wagging its tail, threatening to spray you, I bark at it so it runs away. And then I hear a cough from behind me and I swing round and see the gardener in his high-vis vest. He doesn’t say anything, just cocks his head, looks at me sparrowishly. And I know he has children just from the way he leans on his rake, this Mister McGregor. I’m not my favourite person. In fact I’m pretty far down that list. I’ve let you down. I can tell that you see it as a chore having me around all the time now. And the last thing I want to be is a burden, but I simply have nowhere

else to go. I’ve planted myself here; have taken root by your side. The gardener knows, and I know he knows, but he hasn’t said anything. It’s the pity.Today, when he brought me a flask of lukewarm soup, he told me not to pour it all away into the muck like I did the last one.

Andy lives in Leeds, UK with his girlfriend Heidi and his incredibly noisy, but lucky cat, Eric. He started writing after losing out in a game show hosted by Les Dennis. To find out more, visit Andy’s website: andykirbythewriter.20m.com andrewkirby92@btinternet.com

spotlight

Ross Phil ips

nimation is the ultimate art form, bringing together story telling, images and sounds to create something that is often greater than the sum of its parts. I’m sure this isn’t news to you reading this, but I feel like it’s worth repeating. It seems like more so than ever animation is viewed as something that is only ever used for children’s films. Not that this is always a bad thing, but animation has a lot more to offer than tap dancing penguins. Lately in my work I’ve been more focussed on art and technique than story telling, which is something I haven’t touched upon since my graduation film ‘The Birdwatcher’. I feel like I’ve learned enough now to achieve what I want in a film stylistically, so I am eager to get back to making something with a bit more substance. It’s always thrilling to see my drawings come to life, and I hope I never lose that excitement for the medium.

Bear

Hair One

Hair Two

Animation: Reverse

Animation: E4 Blow Job

Frenchy

Running tear drop

Ross Phillips is an animator from Gateshead, now living in Manchester. He studied animation at Sunderland University, graduating in 2008 and has been working freelance since the summer 2010.

For further information about Ross Phillips and his work, follow the link below: www.rossphillips.net

blankverse

Tutku Barbaros What the preacher said. After each call to prayer finishes you will hear a click. A click that the whole city hears. The imam has gone missing and this is a digitised recording. The first call to prayer. CLICK: ‘It’s not all fun you know, it’s not all fun travelling the world’ Why? Why is it not? She asks. Sipping gravelly Turkish coffee staring out at the city. Mother silent for a minute now and then stopping almost outraged in her tracks: ‘WHERE IS THE PIP???’ ‘.........THE PIP......we were going to save the pips, and then plant them, and then have a date tree’ She immediately remembers flicking the pips out from the balcony off into the street. God help us, says her mother. God help us. Normal parents get this angry when their daughters crash the family car, not here though, not in this city, not in Ankara.

The first call to prayer and then the second. CLICK: I went in to the garden and I picked the lemons from the lemon tree. I scraped my Topshop jeans and was more than annoyed. I cut the lemon in half and found to my surprise: it had filled up half the glass. Speaking of yellow, the cabs are that colour too. I’m more than confused. I wonder how often it’s acknowledged that the Turkish national leader was born in Greece. What the city lacks in graffiti it makes up for in cigarettes. And the black tea continues to be red. It’s not that I’m offended by East meeting West, I just don’t think there should be a KFC next to the Mosque The first call to prayer and then the second and the third. CLICK: The heat of the sun and the realisation you’re walking very slowly towards the house your father grew up in. Steeped in mountains, what is there to do? Other than walk for miles on the debris road. Pressed flowers in photo albums, enlarged black and white pictures of our forefathers. Stray dogs and stray cats. While you crush pistachios for the baklava, those at the table discuss Gadaffi, The EU and the dreams of super economy. It is worth noting here that, in Cyprus, they call it the artichoke head rather than the artichoke heart. The first call to prayer and then the second and the third and then the fourth call to prayer. CLICK: They don’t know how far they walked because no one is very good at measurements these days, but I know it was for a long time. When they got there they were astounded, the house they walked two miles to see, the house

their grandparents lived in was a set of ruins. It was – just chalk. They took a photograph next to it nonetheless, but gained absolutely no sense of... what is or was. They trekked through barley that went up to their waiststhe youngest of the group was 5 and he almost completely disappeared in the grains. They breathed cleaner air and sat in the shade of a date palm. ‘your great grandmother planted this’ explains the eldest ‘and the zeytin tree too!’. The first call to prayer and then the second and the third and the fourth and then finally, the fifth. CLICK: ‘Excuse me Madame? Do come in! We’ll tell your fortune for free’. I’m not interested, I think, it’s all here before me. It started with Ayia Napa, Alicante and Cos. All it took to leave a culture ‘lost’. I’m not saying I have a problem with East meeting West, I just think it’s funny there’s a KFC next to the mosque. I don’t know how we went from pips to clicks. That’s the least of your worries sweetheart. CLICK.

Tutku writes poetry among other things. She studied English and Drama at Sussex University, where she appeared in an anthology of creative writing. She is also a photographer and part of the London theatre group Rugged Isaac.

this monthâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mp3

Bug & Leaf

Interview By David Hartley

Manchester writer David Hartley talks to Bug & Leaf, an electronica duo making all sorts of noises in Salford, including this month’s featured track ‘Throwing Notes at Neighbours’. With little to no knowledge about scenes, terminology or loop pedals, I’ve endeavoured to interview the latest electronica group making ripples in Salford, doing so by virtue of the fact that I share a certain amount of genetic material with one of them. Bug & Leaf are Tom Leah and Rick Hartley who met at the university in Salford and began to spontaneously create sounds using pens, folders, pint glasses and the union bar quiz machine, until someone intervened and told them to do the same with instruments and loop pedals instead. As far as I know, they’ve never actually spoken two words to each other, communicating exclusively through the twang of guitar

string, the thud of the synthesiser and the looping of pedals. Rather daunted by the interview task, and a bit scared I would interrupt this curious and totally fabricated set-up, I did not meet them in a cafe on the Manchester/Salford border on a chilly January afternoon, nor grab them for five minutes before a gig in a grotty bar in Urmston, nor did I secure an exclusive chat with them halfway through an epic twelve hour rehearsal in their electric loop pedal dungeon – I simply rang Rick and put him on speakerphone. I was in my pyjamas. He was watching Celebrity Mastermind. This is post-postmodern dubstep rock and roll kids.

Hi Bug & Leaf Hello Using as many descriptive terms and genre-fusion elaborations as possible, please describe your sound. We’ve been talking about this a lot recently. We used to call ourselves ‘ambient dubstep’ but then we realised we aren’t very dubstep. So maybe we are UK bass and experimental electronica but still quite ambient. So it’ll be a mash up of all that. A mash-up, how appropriate. Let me ask you about your creative approaches. How do your pieces come together? Do you start jamming and let tunes come out naturally, or do you plan things out a bit beforehand? The first one definitely. We set ourselves up like we are about to do a gig and then spend ages just putting sounds together. We use sample pads, effects units, loop pedals, a synth and an old guitar to get as many different feels and sounds as we can. So how long will a typical track take to get from the start to something you are happy with?

pack it all away for the night, get it all out again the next day and give it another couple of hours until it really fits. And then some of the tracks will change over time – this one Throwing Notes at Neighbours is in its fourth or fifth variation now. We are both music students at Salford Uni so we’re always learning and improving our production techniques and we like to go back and patch up old tunes that we think need a bit of fixing. I suppose I have to ask you about your influences, but I promise the next question will be more interesting. The LA electronica scene is a big influence – especially Flying Lotus and their label Brainfeeder with people like Teebs and Baths. The UK post-dubstep is also important to our sound, Mount Kimbie especially. Also Shackleton, James Blake, and Radiohead of course. Outside of music, our surroundings have a big influence to the finished sound. The grittiness of the environment of Salford filters in a lot, giving us some cold, concrete-y vibes. Ok; musically, who do you hate? Who offends your music souls so much that, while creating, you think: “Ok, as long as we don’t end up sounding like such-and-such we’ll be ok”? Go on, slag someone off. LMFAO. We hate LMFAO

We can be there on one tune for four or five hours before we hit on something we’re happy with. Then we

I hate their name.

Yes we hate their name. We really don’t like LMFAO at all. Me either. And there’s an awful lot of that about at the moment – bad trance, bad dubstep that’s all so heavy and over-thetop. There’s a lot of terrible dubstep remixes on YouTube that we just can’t stand. Good. That’s cleared the air with LMFAO at least. They’d better watch out – they won’t be L-ing for much longer. Moving on. To me electronica is a lot about remixing i.e. a lot to me about electronic is remixing. Do you get a certain pleasure from mutilating the music of others? Definitely, it’s a big part. We love sampling and messing about with other people’s work and changing it however we want. But it’s not a matter of mutilation - we consider the samples to be just another instrument in our collection, able to be manipulated in whatever way sounds most fitting. It’s a lot of fun and an important part of our style. From the start you guys have been keen at playing producers and organisers. How important is event organising for a modern band? Very important to us. It’s probably because Bug & Leaf music works best within its context so we like to play to audiences and in venues that are most appropriate to

us. And if we can’t find it, it’s easier to set it up so that we can share the stage with other electronica groups and DJs that we like. Playing other places – like we’ve done Manchester Academy 3 and Dry Bar – they’re great gigs to play, but you’re on the bill with rock bands, indie bands and you won’t get as good a response. And then, of course, organising events is good for getting to know promoters, venues and so on. It all comes down to networking! How is the ‘scene’ in Salford at the moment? Ready for a Bug & Leaf revolution? It can be quite hard, there’s not that much around apart from Islington Mill. Of course Manchester is on the doorstep and there’s stuff going on in South Manchester and Rusholme in particular that we’d like to explore a bit more. There’s more of a vibe down there, and more clubnights.There’s a distinct lack of clubs and opportunities in Salford at the moment and sometimes you tend to forget that electronica is a still a bit of a niche. And yet you don’t deny Salford when you say where you hail from. That’s true. There’s a certain pride to saying that we originate from Salford. This is where we met and where we have both studied, and it has a direct effect on our sound. Also, we like the idea that we are setting up events and stuff for the people of Salford to come see! We also don’t really want to be just another ‘Manchester band’.

That’s understandable. So what plans do you have for world domination in 2012? What’s lined up? More gigs, more music. We want to play in other cities of the North – Liverpool, Leeds, places like that. We’ve got some fresh remixes coming up and a gig at the Dry Bar on Feb 4th. We’ll keep experimenting and try and take our music to new places. We’ve also done a mix for newsicmoos.com which should be out soon. Thanks guys. Now, do you have any questions? No. Probably best. Rick Hartley and Tom Leah are an exciting new Manchester-based ambient dubstep duo not to be overlooked. Through their use of sample pads, effects pedals, loop pedals, live instruments and vocals, they bring their well refined productions to the stage. 2011/2012 promises the arrival of fresh debut productions from the young pair as well as the opportunity to experience the carefully made, beat driven sounds that are stepping the UK music scene in new directions. Keep your eyes on these guys... For more information: http://soundcloud.com/bugandleaf

feature

Kaffeeklatsch Joyfully Messy By Sarah Handyside

‘‘Kaffeeklatsch’ is the German word for idle chatter over coffee – the Oxford English Dictionary has ‘gossip over coffee cups’, which sounds really lovely.’ This is how Joey Connolly begins discussing the poetry project of the same name that he, alongside Matthew Halliday, Stephen Nashef and more recently Nadia Connor, have been working on for over a year. It’s an opening that befits the venture perfectly, a line that meanders effortlessly into explorations of academic criticism versus casual chatter, what it means to have a manifesto and that endlessly frightening question – ‘so what is poetry, anyway?’ Because the Kaffeeklatsch project is knowingly, obviously, purposefully open-ended. It currently inhabits www.manualpoetry.co.uk and two charmingly produced print volumes of compositions, reviews, photography and illustration, available by for £4.50 including delivery via the website. Featured poets range from the established (John McAuliffe) to the unknown (Jamie Hodgson, who opens the first volume).

In all its guises, Kaffeeklatsch manages to be both whimsical and serious, nonchalant and focused. The editors describe the first volume’s as a ‘pleasantly omnivorous, winsome collection, and, although disparate, there are many lines to be drawn between [the poems]’. They go on to offer some pleasingly relaxed and simple means of reading the collection – we’re talking no more than a couple of sentences of literary criticism here – and end with a firm ‘Enough. Enjoy the poems’. As introductions to a new poetry journal go, it’s brief and clipped. So much the better, it seems. The Kaffeeklatsch project was conceived in a moment of spare time as Joey, Matthew and Stephen finished their degrees. ‘We just realised we were going to have quite a lot of time on our hands, and we’re all very interested in poetry but thought a lot of poetry magazines are pretty boring. We thought we could do better. So we spent a year making the manifesto and then about two months putting together the first issue.’ Ah yes, the manifesto. It’s a brilliantly tongue-in-cheek document, an exponentially footnoted statement that happily exposes the ludicrousness of even attempting to define what poetry is...while offering some serious, beautiful, lyrical possibilities. And quite a few jokes. It’s jarring and confusing and pokes fun at poetic pretentions whilst being quietly self aware of its own.

“It’s difficult to take the idea of a manifesto seriously, because the idea of anyone having that kind of authority is laughable, especial y with poetry.”

‘It’s difficult to take the idea of a manifesto seriously, because the idea of anyone having that kind of authority is laughable, especially with poetry. So we wanted a manifesto that was a criticism of manifesto too. It’s got a lot of contradictions. The basic idea is that any one simple statement carries a huge amount of extra information within it – the main statement is made by its form rather than its content. We wanted it to be hopelessly complicated, endlessly expandable, joyfully messy.’ The ethos, hopes and intentions of the project become clearer as Joey talks, in a process that works delightfully as form over content too. Kaffeeklatsch can’t be described in a single sentence, because it actively doesn’t want to be. It’s certainly about debating poetry as well as simply reading it – but in a way that’s neither restrictive nor resolutely highbrow. Joey talks passionately about the ‘intelligent and complex and difficult’ in terms of poetry, but also of the sheer, unadulterated joy of reading poetry for its own sake. Reassuringly, he describes in knowing terms the fear of not understanding poetry – the fear, he believes, that keeps so many people from reading it. ‘We want to protect our egos and not look stupid in front of someone who seems to ‘get it’ – who seems to understand perfectly.’ And whilst he’s undoubtedly aware of the minefield of clichés when it comes to the old ‘there’s no right answer’

chestnut, it’s clear that discussion, debate and multiple interpretation is the real passion of Kaffeeklatsch. ‘We liked the ideas of gossip, and of casual, nonacademic discussion of poetry, and of various voices contributing to one thing. We liked that very complicated ideas are as likely to come up over gossip with coffee cups as they are in a seminar. We wanted a way of getting at them without being any of the terrible things that the poetry world can sometimes be – without being closeted, or highbrow, or closedoff.’ Having formed their vision, the founders sent emails to everyone they knew in the poetry world, asking for submissions and word spreading. They were inundated with submissions, and decided to accompany them with separate literature reviews of their own, by way of introducing their editorial stances and tastes. They paid for the first volume to be printed themselves, hoping to make the investment back through sales, which they have. The printers, Inky Little Fingers, have done a beautiful job. The volume looks and feels more expensive than it is, and sweet touches abound from the copyright statement warning of ‘bitter regret and remorse’ to the narrative describing how each font was selected. For the future they hope to draw on both a wider circle of reviewers and to feature internationally acclaimed poets alongside those who have never been published

before. Volume II, out now, includes pieces by Vona Groarke, George Szirtes, Mark Waldron, Helen Tookey and Tom Warner. Poetry, so often the most alienating of art forms, is given a wonderfully refreshing treatment by Kaffeeklatsch. I’m sure all readers of poetry, from the new and bewildered to the old hands who think they’ve seen it all, will find something to enjoy and ponder over here. Take a few minutes out, grab a coffee cup. Life’s too short to not intersperse it with pleasures like this. I certainly hope that Kaffeeklatsch continues along its ramshackle path. It’s that rare thing – a venture that truly marches to the beat of its own drum. Although no doubt it would sharply rebuff the idea of even possessing a regular rhythm.

Kaffeeklatsch is a journal of new poetry and criticism, based in Manchester but ambitiously outward-looking. Editorial interest lies particularly in creativitywith respect to content, or form, or both. Translation, experiment, complication,and humour are all important to the magazine. www.manualpoetry.co.uk

blankpicks

ANBAD There's a period at the beginning of a band's life - just after they get good at what they do but before they've left the breathlessly exciting honeymoon period - that really interests me; that period of pure, unfettered creativity. The reason I run A New Band A Day is to give me a legitimate reason to scrabble around at the bottom of the New Bands Heap, find new ones that make me twitchy with pleasure, and then write about them in breathless terms before I get bored. All this snuffling about means hearing a lot of genuinely horrible bands, but after listening to so many gruesome Mumford and Sons knock-offs, I can usually tell if a band is worth attention after a few seconds. So really my role as ANBAD editor consists of clicking a link, grimacing, and quickly clicking that browser window closed. I'll find a good band infrequently enough for it to be considered within the margin of error, so a statistician would probably conclude that I listen to literally no good new bands at all. The reality is that the internet is teeming with astonishingly novel and creative and bright new bands who all fulfil my only actual criteria: I just want to hear something I haven't heard before. A good, or at least well-intentioned, music blog's job is to enthusiastically pass on a connection to what it is that makes Band X stand out (NB: there may well be a band named 'Band X' that proves that sentence wrong in its truest sense).

The aspect of blogging that gives me the most pleasure is meeting a band who tell me that I understood them and what they do. This happens now and then. Mainly though, I listen to bad Indie bands for a few seconds at a time for a few hours a day.

ANBAD recommends:

Louis Barabbas

For more information: www.anewbandaday.com Just as there's a spot at the start of a band's career where their thrusting youth creates exciting new sounds, there is also a point when a band takes a discernible step - a step into that ill-defined place of "bigger things". I think Louis Barabbas's band The Bedlam Six, will do that very soon. I think this because I've heard their new recordings and it possesses that "step", although I'd add the caveat that a music blogger's tips for the future are almost always worth the paper they're written on (i.e. nothing whatsoever). Whatever you think of his music, Louis' blog is one of my must-reads. Smart, wry, intelligent, rambling, thoughtful, funny and loquacious, he riffs on music - and what it actually is to be a musician; or the madness of the music industry at large (he also runs the knowingly-named Debt Records); or whatever else plops into his ever-fascinated mind. If that doesn't convince you, maybe some textspeak will: I have actually LOL'd at his writing. It's a Tumblr blog, but don't hold that against him: louisbarabbas.tumblr.com

Forthcoming Events

January 2012 LOST IS FOUND Gallery 1,Cornerhouse, Manchester runs until February 19 Wander into an illusion, where the lost is found… Lost is Found is a group show of work from nine artists based in the North of England. The exhibited works find beauty in the redundant and discarded, explore past lives and find new stories in transformations and fleeting identities. Displacement of identity, relics of childhood, secret desires, fragments of memory and traces of history are brought to life through sculpture, photography, installation and drawing. cornerhouse.org CONTOUR STATES Gallery 2 & 3, Cornerhouse, Manchester runs until March 25 Contour States is the first major UK public solo show by British artist Samantha Donnelly. With a strong interest in the images presented in today’s media that continue to idealise and objectify the human form, the exhibition features new work that explores representations of female identity in photography, TV, film and advertisements. cornerhouse.org

CURIOSITIES: CELEBRATING TREES Manchester Museum Runs until February 5 An installation featuring the winning photographs from the Curiosities Favourite Tree Photography competition museum.manchester.ac.uk SHUFFLE Pluspace, Coventry Runs until February 29 Pluspace at Radioplus presents Shuffle an exhibition of emerging artists that have been based in or around the West Midlands. Each of the artists in the exhibition draw upon elements of arts history, applying features of inspiration and the development of artistic practices. The varied selection of different styles, forms and content reveals some idiosyncratic narratives that create works mindful of today and the world around us. matthewmacaulay.net THE MEN POMES Studio Salford, Salford February 29 - March 3 Creator of Chloe Poems and writer of smash hit play ‘Miracle’, Gerry Potter brings his brand new one man show to his favourite theatre, Studio Salford, above The King’ Arms on Salford’s Bloom Street. www.studiosalford.com

AFTER HOURS Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, February 25, 7.30 - 10.30pm

FLASH LANGUAGE LITERARY PUB QUIZ Barcelona Bar, Manchester, February 21, 7.30pm

Join us to celebrate the start of the Manchester Histories Festival with an offbeat evening of discussions music and performance responding to our exhibition, COTTON: Global Threads. whitworth.manchester.ac.uk

It’s that time again where we tickle your linguistic brains and challenge you to a dual of literature. There will be words, prizes and bad books, so bring your friends. Maximum six people per team. facebook.com/groups/badlanguage

UNDER THAT CLOUD Manchester Art Gallery, Runs until April 5

BAD LANGUAGE Castle Hotel, Manchester, February 29, 7.30pm

An exhibition of jewellery by 18 international artists produced in response to their experience of being stranded together in Mexico City in April 2010 under the Icelandic volcanic ash cloud. Their enforced stay became an exciting opportunity to make new work inspired by their impressions of Mexico – the vibrant colours, the traffic chaos, the architecture, the ancient heritage, the music and the people. manchestergalleries.org

The new year of Bad Language kicks off with another brilliant night of spoken word, poetry and prose at The Castle Hotel in Manchester’s Northern Quarter. Our headline act this month will be Peter Wild, author of The Passenger. facebook.com/groups/badlanguage

SOMETHING TO SHOUT ABOUT? To include your event or recommend someone else’s in a future issue just email us with your event title, location, date, time and a short description. Editor@ blankmediacollective.org (max 100 words)

Blank Media Collective Team: Directors: Mark Devereux & John Leyland Financial Administrator: Martin Dale Head of Design: Michael Thorp BLANKSPACE Venue Manager: Chris Leyland Website Designer: Simon Mills Exhibition Curators: Jamie Hyde, Kate Charlton, Peter Fallon & Rose Barraclough Documentation: Gareth Hacking & Iain Goodyear

blankpages Team: Editor: John Leyland Assistant Editor: Abigail Ledger-Lomas Development Coordinator: Kate O’Hara Feature Editor: Sarah Handyside Fiction Editor: Dan Carpenter Poetry Editor: Christopher Riesco Visual Editor: Simon Meredith