A Text Festival Itinerary for 2011 (with a Brief Glance at 2009)

Geof Huth, Tony Trehy, and Ron Silliman after Huth's Reading, Text Festival (1 May 2009)
Tomorrow, I leave for the Text Festival in Bury, England (and "Bury" is pronounced "bury," which seems right, but I've noticed that North Americans always guess it's pronounced "berry"). I have less of a role in this festival than 2009's but much more than in 2007's, and I have plenty to do while there. Here's what my schedule looks like at the moment:


27 April 2011
(Eastern Standard Time)

12:00 n Drive to John F. Kennedy Airport in New York City

8:45 pm Fly to Heathrow Airport, London


28 April 2011
(Greenwich Mean Time)

9:00 am Arrive at Heathrow

11:10 am Fly to Manchester

12:10 am Arrive in Manchester

1:00 pm Take Taxi to Manchester

1:30 pm Arrive at Hilton Manchester Deansgate

2:00 pm Sleep in room (if lucky enough to get into the hotel early)

Evening Dinner with Text Festival Artists in Manchester


29 April 2011

10 am I will be working with Phil Davenport and others walking around Manchester and making visual poetry postcards with homeless people (Someone will tell me if I've gotten this wrong)

Evening Party at Tony Trehy's Flat for Festival Artists


30 April 2011

9:00 am Researching Records of dom sylvester houédard at the John Rylands Library, Manchester

11:00 am Festival Opening Featuring Exhibition Openings and Performances, Bury Art Gallery & Museum

4:00 pm Ron Silliman, Satu Kaikkonen & Karri Kokko, and Phil Minton's Bury Feral Choir, Bury Parish Church

6:00 pm Buffet Dinner, the Met, Bury

7:30 pm Sound and Dark, Featuring Christian Bök, Holly Pester, Sarah Boothroyd, Eduard Escoffet, Bruno Bresani and Others, The Met Arts Centre, Bury


1 May 2011

11:00 MERZTEXTE, Bury Art Gallery & Museum (until 4 pm)

Evening Scavenging for Food in the Streets of Bury


2 May 2011

9:50 Fly out of Manchester Airport

Eastern Standard Time

12:40 Arrive at JFK Airport in New York

2:00 Drive Home

6:00 Arrive Home

6:01 Sleep (or write a poem)


Appearances of My Work at the Text Festival

Wonder Rooms, Bury Art Gallery (preview on April 30)

Exhibition will include the work of dozens of visual poets and 50 to 99 calligraphic visual poetry cards of mine. A total of 100 cards will become a part of the permanent collection of the Bury Art Gallery and Museum (the largest sale of my visual poetry by far ever; the next highest was probably about $300 when a visual poem of mine was accidentally sold when it should not have been and the cash went to another visual poet).

The History of Tradestamps, Bury Museum & Archives
Opening: 30 April 2011 at 11:30am

I submitted a modern "tradestamp" for this exhibit, though I am not positive it will be show. (I was paid for this piece, so I'm pleased regardless.)

Book Launched during the Festival

I'm not sure of the title of this book or what of mine will be in it, but during the festival a book will be launched featuring Ron Silliman, Robert Grenier, Tony Lopez, Phil Davenport, Carol Watts, Holly Pester, and me.

Blank Pages Issue 34

This Manchester magazine will feature an interview with me along with one of my poems from my 365 ltrs project.

I'm sure I'll keep busy. My main reason for going to the Text Festival is to see my friends, too many to mention and some whom I've never met before. It will be a great time.


I also had a great time at the last Text Festival. For views of 2009's festival, see these photographs:

30 April 2009

Views of Manchester along with photographs of the exhibits at the Text Festival exhibits and photos from the evening of videopoetry.

1 May 2009

Views of exhibits at the Text Festival, including plenty of my own work, and shots of my 20-minute (maybe longer) extravaganza of a reading. (It was long, but enjoyable, I believe.)

3 May 2009

More views of exhibits, especially of the work of Liz Collini, and shots of the artist's roundtable (maybe it was called a thought experiment) that we carried out in the morning. I got in trouble at this one, because I gave too much evidence that I didn't buy into this event--and I suggested the murder of Tony Trehy, but only for art's sake (and "It was a metaphor!").

ecr. l'inf.