Tottering State #3: Tottering SPAM Special
Thrilled to be taking our February poetry tour to the beautiful city of Bristol, in celebration of three recent publications! This is a collaboration with Tottering State, a reading series hosting the best in experimental, small press and innovative poetry from the UK and beyond. Follow them on X @TotteringState.
WHAT WHERE WHEN WHO:
Fri 16th February
Bookhaus, Bristol
7–9pm
£6 tickets - include a glass of wine or soft drink and £2 off the book
Order tickets here.
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Tottering State returns to bookhaus with their first 2024 reading, in collaboration with Glasgow-based post-internet poetry publisher SPAM Press. We will celebrate the launch of three new pamphlets (spamphlets?) by Karólína Rós Ólafsdóttir, Jack Young and Courtney Bush, plus a new poetry collection by managing editrix Maria Sledmere, who will discuss the press in a Q&A with the poets after the readings. Tottering State is a Bristol reading series hosting the best in experimental, small press and innovative poetry from the UK and beyond. Wobbly spam. Poetry for unsteady times.
SPAM Press is a post-internet poetry publisher described by ChatGPT as ‘an avant-pop haven nestled in the digital realm’. Operating as a pamphlet press, zine, online magazine, literary journal, DIY organiser and podcast, SPAM embraces the collision of theory and pop culture in and against the oscillating stratospheres of late capitalism. Established in Glasgow in 2016, SPAM comprises a cheerful bunch of voluntary editors with interests spanning New Media writing, ecopoetics, hypertexts, video games and the magical, trashy detritus of life on the internet. With an international author roster and readership, they have published over fifty print publications by writers including Samantha Walton, Jennifer Soong and Daisy Lafarge. Their most recent anthology, Brilliant Vibrating Interface, was supported by the Edwin Morgan Trust Second Life Award and is accompanied with a ‘digital sibling’ of hybrid and transmedial experiments in text, image and film.
The readers:
Courtney Bush is a poet and filmmaker. She lives and works in childcare in New York City. She is the author of Every Book Is About The Same Thing (Newest York Arts Press, 2022) and I Love Information (Milkweed Editions, 2023).
Karólína Rós Ólafsdóttir is a poet writing in Icelandic and English, working across creative writing, visual arts, and translation. She is currently translating early 20th century Icelandic poetry into English researching Nordic Decadence. She is a graduate of the English and Creative Writing BA at Goldsmiths University and is currently pursuing a Creative Writing MA at the University of Iceland. Her work has appeared in publications such as Volupté, SPAM, magma poetry, amberflora zine, Wormhole, STARA journal, and Pastel Series as well as in performances and group exhibitions in Iceland, Germany, and the United Kingdom.
Maria Sledmere is an artist and writer based in Glasgow. She is the author of over twenty creative publications including Cinders (KRUPSKAYA, 2024), An Aura of Plasma Around the Sun (Hem Press, 2023) and Cocoa and Nothing – with Colin Herd (SPAM Press, 2023). With Rhian Williams, she co-edited the anthology the weird folds: everyday poems from the anthropocene (Dostoyevsky Wannabe, 2020) and with Aaron Kent, The Last Song: Words for Frightened Rabbit (Broken Sleep, 2023). Maria lectures in English & Creative Writing at the University of Strathclyde, is managing editor of SPAM Press and was recently included in the Saltire Society’s ‘40 under 40’ list celebrating ‘outstanding Scottish creatives’. With musician Kevin Leomo, she is one half of PROJECT SOMNOLENCE, an artist-led odyssey through the sonic ecologies of sleep.
Jack Young is a writer and socially-engaged artist living in Bristol. He writes hybrid work exploring land justice, queer ecologies and hauntings of landscape and archive. His debut chapbook is URTH (Big White Shed:2022), he co-edited the book Haunting Ashton Court: A Creative Handbook for Collective History-Making (2023) and his most recent pamphlet is in the country garden/the end of england (SPAM Press, 2023). He also co-hosts the literary podcast Tender Buttons in partnership with Storysmith Bookshop, with recent guests including Max Porter, Bhanu Kapil, Nuar Alsadir, Lola Olufemi, Yara Rodrigues Fowler and Joelle Taylor, among many others.
Website: jackmyoung.net