I have written about all the gigs performed. They are in More Blog Entries. The December 15th 2007 gig is the whole kit and caboodle. i.e. With Dr. Mond and his music.
BOOK NEWS
* Some of my non-Grimoire work will be included in an anthology coming out on Shearsman in 2009 "Infinite Difference" of UK women's avant garde poetries
* You will be able to hear me reading a poem that I have never read from the G of G in London (read it for the first time in Durham) because it is rather troublesome to do so...Cathexis 2:1 ....sheesh!(no really you have to hear me attempt to read it ha ha at www.poetcasting.co.uk
* It has been over a year, and the G of G is now available in paperback, in the U.S.A. My last gig was on December 15th 2008 at the Caroline Wiseman gallery where I read a poem that was written as part of a project entitled Poetry On Art.
Here is some of the stuff that I hadn't listed here before:Last season performances/shows - Nov 1st to 14th 2008 VIBE GALLERY photo exhibit; SouthBank centre Poetry Library Mon 27th October 2008; Lauderdale house Nov 13th 2008; Colpitts Poetry Durham November 21st 2008; December 13th 2008 Caroline Wiseman Gallery Poetry On Art
* The Grimoire of Grimalkin is now officially it's own being in real fleshpaper and inkblood. It is hardbound and beautiful thanks to the verve and enthusiasm of SALT.
It can be procured at the SALT website. EXCERPTS ARE ALSO AT THIS LOCATION :http://www.saltpublishing.com/books/smp/9781844713097.htm
and on Amazon both in the U.S.A and U.K.
AUSTRALIA:http://www.inbooks.com.au/index.shtml
Viva La Langue!
PERFORMANCE NEWS AND SUCHTYPE
Sascha Akhtar has been performing from her new book at various venues in London. Please see blog entries and news of upcoming shows. A U.S. Tour is in the works for 2008. For bookings and information contact: lalangoustine@gmail.com
"Unafraid and blazing,in personality, her performance also carries this spirit. Accompanied by pianist, Dr.Mond(Ralf Martin) in the style of silent movie accompaniment, Sascha's words are powerful and mesmerizing. Find the next performance and make sure you attend it".
ENDORSEMENTS AND SUCH
1
BERNADETTE MAYER
Besides an inveterate love of language which makes you write “her malachite décolletage,” whatever else you need to be a good poet is here. It could be sounds. Come right in; don't step gently then.
11
CHRISTIAN ZORKA,auteur de Sièges (Montréal: Le Quartanier, 2006). www.christianzorka.com
Le lecteur aura peur parfois d’être dupe, il aura peur parfois d’être devenu sorcier à son tour, il aura peur parfois d’avoir refait le monde à son image, puis s’arrachera les yeux. La poésie contemporaine attendait ce livre.
111ANTHONY JOSEPH Sascha Akhtar repels ghosts with this text and liberates the word from the burden of meaning. These poems are spells and sonorous soundings that have the power to frighten, seduce or enchant. Akhtar aspires to magic. This is a timeless and vital collection from a poet willing to transcend the liminal.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Language is divisive. It is constantly dividing the human sensibility into tribes, countries, continents, cultures, societies, personalitiy and gender. The Grimoire of Grimalkin comes from a psychology of primordiality, where all is admissible. There was perhaps before language divided us, a one “language”.
The Grimoire of Grimalkin was conceived during passionate affairs with French fin-de-siecle literature and Russian poets from the 1920’s of the obscure kind. During this time the poet was also conducting amorous relations with Old English fairy tales, and the English language itself, it’s past, present and future. IE roots were plundered, whilst flirting with Plato’s notions of the thing itself vs. the image conjured up by the word.
There is a strong strain of the Eastern courtly love tradition – the wretched, tortured lover, but it is never quite clear who the object of the love is. Wrapped in necromancy, invocations and references to the Devil, The Grimoire of Grimalkin is a balls out excursion in language taking Bakhtin’s ideas of polyglossia, Deleuze and Guattari’s rhizome model and other po-mo philosophies and running amok with them. The work is rife with literary, film, and television references, a particular debt is owed to Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy.
There is a feeling of an articulate medieval sensibility at work fraught with nightmares, superstitions and mythology. In the 16th century “grimoires” were spell books written by witches. In The Grimoire there is a channelling of sorts, of talking in tongues, of black magic, through the use of language of al guises. Obsolete or “dead” words mingle with contemporary British slang, “Indo-European roots” appear harmonizing with malapropisms and puns. The Devil makes appearances contributing to the invocation of such to create spells perhaps to enamour lovers.
The Grimoire of Grimalkin is a nod to denizens of the obscure and underground such as Octave Mirbeau, Isidore Ducasse, Theda Bara, Robert Smith et al.
It is a future-past adventure with strong musicality keeping with no convention or traditions but bowing to them all. A certain self-reflexive quality in the work creates a constant atmosphere of double-entendre.
Notions of the creation of “meaning” are consistently challenged in a primordial forge where language melts into a bubbling cauldron of delicious trickery, sex and death, magick and mayhem and a strong tortured love. Contemporary Gothic, with a punk core and an anarchic sense of humour.
Issue 8 is now available for purchase at our website.
It includes stories by Sam Pink, Blake Butler, D. Harlan Wilson, Rhys Hughes, Ofelia Hunt, Cameron Pierce, Mike Young, Matthew Simmons, Darby Larson, Aaron Sitze, and Adam Breckenridge.
Hi Sascha, hope things are good with you, Hannah is reading next week at the Flea Pit on Columbia road, I think I'm going, come along if you are about!
I am trying to go through my friends and connect with people that I cam n't recall communicating with. The emphasis to communicate with other poets. Hope you're dong fine and life is good?
Bonjour, Sitartmag, la revue culturelle et littéraire en ligne a lu et aimé "Ce que la vie Signifie pour moi" de Jack London. Nous en sommes très heureux car nous apprécions énormément la qualité de cette revue. Le Sonneur http://www. sitartmag. com/jlondon. htm
Hi Sascha! Sorry for the delay in replying - I haven't checked MySpace in ages. Your Salt book is fantastic - I bought it in the Waterstones in Exeter. Nice that Salt are getting into the shops now, eh?
I notice we're on the same billing at the Troubador on Feb 4th! Hurrah!
Dearest Sascha... thanks for the b.day wishes and thanks too so much for the dazzling Amazon appraisal/review of Saltworks. Have been much under the weather these past couple of weeks. Crazy workloads and a devil of a flu has knocked me out of th'crows nest... Hang on... am starting to climb back up again... can feel it in de bones I can, yarrrr. G.
Thanks for the compliment. It's not a Quronic verse although it basically praises Mohammad and says to trust in Ali. I don't remember the name of the poet, but it was a Persian guy who wrote it in Arabic during the 17th century. Afzaal's a really nice guy...great musician too.
