if p then q readings at Peste
Sarah-Clare Conlon, Literature Editor
Thanks to James Davies, publisher at if p then q and former third of much-missed avant-garde poetry reading series The Other Room, powerhouses of experimental poetry Peter Jaeger and Maggie O’Sullivan are heading to Manchester to read at Peste, and we’ve rearranged our schedules to accommodate.
Maggie O’Sullivan edited Reality Street’s now classic anthology of contemporary linguistically innovative writing by women in North America and the UK, Out Of Everywhere.
Peter Jaeger is a Canadian writer, artist and musician based in Bristol and London, where he is Emeritus Professor at University of Roehampton, teaching poetry and literary theory. He is the author of 12 books, including works of poetry and conceptual writing, and hybrid creative-critical research, and he has been published by Bloomsbury and Veer. His most recent book is Postamble (or Postamble For An Invisible Sangha, to give it its full moniker), which was published by if p then q in 2021. This follows 2018’s Midamble; both explore walking and spiritual philosophies. A Field Guide To Lost Things was published by if p then q in 2015 and is a dictionary of things from the natural world in Proust’s Swann’s Way (part of the In Search Of Lost Time mega-tome; yes, the one with the madeleine). Other books include Rapid Eye Movement, out with Reality Street in 2009, Prop (2007), Eckhart Cars (2004) and Power Lawn (1999).
‘His is a poetry of minimalist immersion,’ says fellow Canadian poet and artist Angela Rawlings. ‘We give over to the lessons of any moment, of all detail.’
Poet, editor, publisher and visual artist associated with the British Poetry Revival, Maggie O’Sullivan was born in 1951 in Lincoln to Irish parents and – after working for the BBC in London from 1971 until 1988 – now lives in the Pennines outside Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire. She has performed her work and published internationally since the late 1970s, and her books include Rockdrill 11: States Of Emergency, published by Manchester’s Carcanet Press in 2005, Palace Of Reptiles (2003), Red Shifts (2000), In The House Of The Shaman (1993) and An Incomplete Natural History (1984). Her work has been anthologised widely, including in Poems for the Millennium Vol 2, and The Salt Companion To Maggie O’Sullivan collects essays by contemporaries on her work. In 1996, Maggie O’Sullivan edited Reality Street’s now classic anthology of contemporary linguistically innovative writing by women in North America and the UK, Out Of Everywhere. Her most recent collection is Courtship Of Lapwings, published by with if p then q in 2021.
Adam Piette, Professor of Modern Literature at the University of Sheffield, says of the book: ‘O’Sullivan’s astonishing Courtship Of Lapwings explores potentialities of typeface, vocalisation and acousmatic continuation-effects, with an attention to living beings under threat.’
