Claire Trévien's Blog

I'm pretty excited to say that I have a new pamphlet coming out in about 9 days' time... It's called Brain Fugue and it's published by the mighty Verve Poetry Press. Tour dates in the UK will be in April/May which I hope to announce soon.



In the meantime you can pre-order it here

August was swallowed up by urgency and travel. I returned to Brittany the first half of August when my dad was rushed into hospital. It's been one of those heavy-on-funerals years so I didn't want to take any chances. This happily resolved itself with a quintuple bypass on 11th and he is already back to cycling on an (electric) bicycle.As well as death, 2016 has been so far for me the year of catching every passing bug. January was a write-off as were various other weeks since. I think my immune system is keen to get aboard the Pokemon trend. I've been rather hard at myself as a result, not getting as many things done as I'd like whilst getting overwhelmed by others.But as Dr Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park says, 'Life will not be contained'.--The second half of August I returned to South Africa, for part 2 of my Arts Council Travel Grant. I had a wonderful time in Cape Town, Grahamstown, and the McGregor Poetry Festival, giving workshops and readings, but also imbibing as much poetry as I could. I could have easily done with double of the time there to speak to more people, digest more books, and travel to further places. As with any projects, it's frustratingly limited, but I am glad to have had the opportunity to expand my reading horizons further than European and north American traditions. You can read some reviews and interviewshere, more to come soon.I've returned to the UK invigorated, but also running to stand still. I will be teaching for a second time my online courseDeep Divingfor the Poetry School. I also have some exciting readings coming up. Next week I'll be reading alongside Jo Bell, David Morley, Luke Kennard, Sarah Howe, and Jonathan Edwards at the inauguralKenilworth Arts Festival. What a line up!On 29th September I'll be reading at an event masterminded by Jill Abram, called'Stablemates'At Waterstones Picadilly. As you can guess, each event from that series showcases a different press. So for this one, I'll be reading with fellow Penned in the Margins authors Ross Sutherland and Charlotte Newman.That's enough information for now, bring on the Autumn!

I've been a bit quiet on this site of late, but it's not for a lack of things happening, I promise!Rather than list the ways in which I've been busy, I thought I'd share a rough picture of a polaroid taken this afternoon of a Kervadol dolmen. This is the site that inspired the poem "Confirmation Bias" in Astéronymes, which you can findhere.Here is the polaroid:And here it is with the poem:And here is a picture of me from my 2014 visit, around the time I drafted the poem for the first time:

Astéronymesis now officially out! I launched it on Monday in London and Tuesday in Brighton, both alongside the wonderful John McCullough launching hisSpacecraft.There's a lot I want to say, and not much time.The big lines are:A first review of AstéronymesJust before the London launch, a review of Astéronymes appeared in theOxford Mail. Many thanks to Humphrey 'Huck Astley for his thoughtful review!A video trailer for AstéronymesJohn's Spacecraft is beautiful.No really. If you don't believe me, here's an extract:I'm not the only one to think so, fortunately! At the Brighton launch, copies of his book sold out before the evening even began!You can read a review of the nighthere.We're doing it all again inOxford, Tuesday 19th Aprilat Blackwell's, from 7pm! So come and help us give it a final push!

My second collection Astéronymes is officially out into the world. It's a nerve-wracking and wonderful feeling at the same time, and gone all too quickly really.

I first came across that wonderful word, 'Astéronyme' a few years ago when working down the road from where I do now, at the Voltaire Foundation. Voltaire was quite fond of this technique, which involves blanking out a person's name with asterisks.

It felt particularly apt for this collection whose two main strands (I'd say) are on the one hand standing stones and other historical artefacts, and on the other, contemporary friendship. One could argue that the original purpose of standing stones is now as decipherable as memories from a particularly heavy night out, so maybe not that strange after all.

The book will be launched in April alongside John McCullough's Spacecraft in London, Brighton and Oxford. Details on the Pnned in the Margins website: pennedinthemargins.co.uk

Yet another (quick) round-up of 2015! I intended to do one earlier, but the review-a-thon I undertook in December sapped most of my spare time (no regrets though). I just wanted to share a couple of things that happened which I’m grateful for:Iinterviewed Raymond Cauchetier,photographer of the Nouvelle Vague for the British Journal of Photography. It was a real privilege to meet him and a joy.I sailed around theNorthern Islesfor the whole of August, resulting in poetry & friendships.The Saboteur Awards, created with funding from Arts Council England were bigger and better this year – I was really moved byits success.Two festivals stood out for me this year:StAnzahosted the final performance ofThe Shipwrecked House, whileCheltenham Poetry Festivalgave a warm welcome toOther Countries, as well as my co-editor Gareth Prior and I.I taught two rewarding online courses for the Poetry School, one on the sea, the other on astronomy.Edited and published two gorgeous pamphlets by Susie Campbell and JT Welsch.Performed in all sorts of interesting places, some favourites include Oxford's Mathematical Institute, Liverpool's Storm and the Golden Sky, Long Poem Magazine's launch at the Barbican, and Southampton's SO:TO Speak Festival.I began last year performing The Shipwrecked House atthe Oxford Playhouse. This year starts with a new adventure, also funded by Arts Council England: I’m off to South Africa inless than a week’s time!

Poetry SchoolI don’t know about you, but December doesn’t seem to be showing signs of slowing down! I’ve just completed my third poetry course for the Poetry School, this time on astronomy, and loved the poems my students came up with. You can see two of them up on Campus at the moment, (click herefor Vasiliki Albedo Bennu’s, andherefor Majella Kelly).Review-a-thonOne of the reasons why life feels so full is because I have been undertaking a review-a-thon over at Sabotage Reviews to fundraise for the next Saboteur Awards. I’ve made it to day 17, let’s see if I can keep going until NYE! You can read the reviews over atSabotagereviews.comand donatehere. Do share links on social media using the hashtag #pamphletparty!Books, books, and more books!I have not one but two books coming out next year. The first is my second poetry collectionAstéronymes. It will be published by Penned in the Margins, and out sometime in March. There’ll be various joint launches in April with John McCullough who also has a collection out with Penned! We’re planning to go to London, Oxford and Brighton so far, but if you fancy greeting two poets in your fair city, do get in touch!What to say aboutAstéronymes? It’s essentially, I think, a book about friendship explored through the language of archives and ancient history... I'll be saying more about it closer to the time, I promise...The second book has been a long time in the making. Originally, it was my PhD thesis (which I completed back in 2012), but it’s been through a fair few revisions since. So I’m pleased to say thatStaging Satire: Theatrical Metaphors in Prints of the French Revolutionwill be out late next year with Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment.I also have a chapter forthcoming in Caught between Fact and Fiction: Eighteenth-Century Escape Talesall about the Comtesse de la Motte-Valois' escape from prison with a bit of Marie-Antoinette thrown in too. It’s being published by Bucknell at some point next year as part of their seriesTransits: Literature, Thought & Culture 1650-1850.Plans afootFirst, before these books see the light, I’m really excited to say that I’ve been granted an Artists’ International Development Fund from Arts Council England to travel to South Africa twice next year. There are two parts to this funding, on the one hand I intend to showcase as much of the South African poetry scene as I can, through interviews and reviews, which will appear on Sabotage Reviews. The other part will result in new work borne out of collaboration.My first visit will be in early January, where I get to read with two fantastic poets at the Book Lounge (see details below) and I can’t wait to get started!Quite a lot of news then!On that note, hope you all have a fantastic end of 2015, and may 2016 bring you wonderful things indeed!

The Poetry Book Fair, Free Verse, has become an unmissable fixture on the poetry calendar. Every year, it brings together publishers, poets, and other poetry-fans from across the UK and beyond. It seems to keep getting better too. This year’s events have certainly grown, including a children’s poetry section, workshops themed around translation, and even poetry cosplay judged by Sidekick Books.I popped in around midday, and managed to buy an impressive amount of books in record time. Some finds include David B. Goldstein’s Object Permanence and Tomaž Šalamun’s Poker (both Ugly Duckling Press), Janet Rogerson’s Bad Influence Girl (Rialto), Catherine Smith’s The New Cockaigne (The Frogmore Press), the latest Rising, JT Welsch’s Hell Creek Anthology (Sidekick Books), and more.The wonderful thing about the fair is discovering all these new publishers I’d not come across before, such as Singing Apple Press, who produce gorgeously hand-crafted work, and Isobar Press, who publish English-language poetry from Japan.Up on the stage, Versal had a stall where they showcased work created all over Europe – a lovely collective effort. I bought Versal’s tenth anniversary issue, which is worth it for the interview with Michael Martone alone.I also purchased Matchbook Stories issue 3, a matchbox-shaped magazine created in Cyprus by Book Ex Machina. The quality of the design was impeccable – though I wish the content itself had been a touch more inventive.I attended Tim Wells and Emma Hammond’s Penned in the Margins readings – as fun as their books, which I recommend heartily. I also attended Harry Man’s English-to-English translation workshop – I can’t remember the last time I attended a poetry workshop as a student, quite a nice change! I took an extract from Dante’s inferno and translated it using the Red Cross’s First Aid Manual.I wish I’d stayed longer, and caught up with more people, but I foolishly thought I’d pop off to see the Cosmonaut exhibition at the Science Museum, and got rapidly drained of energy by London’s public transport system so had to head home. Until next time, and for now, I’m enjoying the free anthology that came with the fair, introducing me to what’s between the pages of unknown presses…..

I am finding it very difficult to summarize August, but nevertheless feel that I should attempt it, not just for myself, but for all the lovely people who helped me raise the funds to go in the first place. I knew it'd be an adventure, I knew I'd find it inspiring, and it was both these things. It's also further infected me with the desire to travel, not helped by the fact that I've emerged from it dating a sailor.So, what happens when a seasick introvert poet shares a small (well, two small) space for a month with a bunch of artists?Quite good things, on the whole.It wasn't all rosy. I had a wobbly moment on my second day, when we were still grounded (waiting for the second boat), and I felt overwhelmed by inaction. I was seasick on our first big sail (from Bressay to Muckle Flugga, a thirteen hour sail in fairly rough weather), and never entirely found my sea legs (but found that lying down in my bunk or staying active on deck were two extremes that worked). Sometimes I felt overwhelmed by group dynamics, decision-making especially, which felt like cat-herding. Sometimes I just wanted to be alone, with internet and a good cup of coffee.But overall, really, I was surprised at how insignificant the above was. I was surprised at how little I missed internet. Beyond the initial fix of looking through notifications, I felt slightly lost looking at my phone,what now?My body didn't fail me too much. I, rather predictably for anyone who knows me, did sprain my ankle in a ditch on the way back from the pub (more of a community hall, open just that night as a bar). Other than that, it held up pretty well, considering.ArtistsI think I really lucked out with the group taking part - there were frictions at times of course - but I respect them all immensely, as artists, as people. I am looking forward to future collaborations - we have so many wonderful overlaps in our interests!(They're also all amazing cooks it turns out, I can't remember the last time I ate so well for a whole month!)Here are some of their websites (I'll add more as and when I find them):www.melaniekozol.comwww.diamunoz.comwww.jenniferhollstein.comwww.drucolbert.netwww.rachelmcbrinn.comI got more writing done than I thought, looking back, enough for a small pamphlet. This is lucky, as I promised backers a small pamphlet. I've approached a bookmaker I love to create something out of it, I just need to assemble the material.Where/What?So to be clear, there were two yachts involved:The Spirit of June(slept 10), andThe Sleepy Eagle(slept 4/5). I was on The Sleepy Eagle for most of the trip, which is owned by John Fleming (bit of an inventor, check outhis self-steering contraption!)We set off from Lerwick (Shetland) and ended in Papa Westray. The Sleepy Eagle left us a little earlier, in Rousay. The last week was meant to have been spent on Papay, but I deviated (see below).This is where I sailed while on the Clipperton Project (with thanks to Liz Crichton, fellow travelling artist for this image):My travels continued after Papa Westray, where I sailed back with the Spirit of June to Gairloch, and from there went to the Isle of Lewis, before heading to Inverness to hire a car and drive down to Oxford. It was a suitably improvised end of the trip.A far less beautiful map of what happened after Papa Westray would look a bit like this:Onwards!

In five days I will be off to Aberdeen, and then Shetland, to join the Clipperton Project for a month-long residency sailing around Shetland and Orkney. It's going to take me three days to get there, so quite an epic journey, but I'm sure it will be completely worth it, in terms of giving myself space to write and create.As someone who is a self-confessed social media addict, spending a month on a boat with no guarantee of a signal is both a daunting and exciting thought. I'll be travelling with six other artists and scientists as well as the Clipperton Project crew.Packing is the challenge I'm putting off for now though. Once you account the wellies, waterproof salopette, sleeping bag and books, there's little room for other essentials (such as my laptop), but I've gotten pretty good at packing over the last three decades so I'm sure it'll be fine...I wouldn't have been able to make this trip in the first place without the generosity of several individuals, who helped crowdfund the money to cover my board last year. Some of them wish to remain anonymous, but let me thank those who were ok with sharing their names (in no particular order):Jo BellPaul MartinTom ClaydonNat NewmanA.F. HarroldClaire SheridanMichael Symmons RobertsRuth StaceyKiranIan ChungRishi DastidarAndrea BerrymanSam LovelessSteve NashJenna GreggClare MosleyLucy AyrtonJames WebsterMartha GreengrassRobert HarperPatricia StoughtonDavid HironsTania HershmanLinda GouldenAdam HorovitzThank you to you all!If you missed the crowdfunding and fancy chipping in, I'm selling copies of the anthology I co-edited,Other Countries: Contemporary Poets Rewiring History, over on ebay. I'll send you a postcard from the boat as a bonus!