Steve Willey collaborated with Edward Nesbit to create Soundings.
I am a Collaborative Doctoral Award student on the AHRC Beyond Text Program. Broadly speaking my research looks at British poetry in performance from 1960-2008. My project investigates the changing contexts of poetic performance in Britain from the 1960s through to the present day. Making use of the Bob Cobbing Sound Archive and Manuscript Archives at the British Library the project explores how performance contexts alter both the production and the reception of poetry. More specifically the project aims to examine how the radical London based writers group Writers Forum, begun by the poet Bob Cobbing in 1958, played a particularly important role within British Poetry and the development of poetic performance. I am also continuing with my poetic practice and am working on an Opera with composer Edward Nesbit, the first part of the libretto is due to be published by Yt Communication Press late in 2009. I am also the Assistant Director of the Archive of The Now an online archive for contemporary poetry. I continue to be a co-organiser of Openned and often deliver poetry workshops in schools.
Recent Publications
Introductory sleeve notes for a C.D, The Spoken Word: Bob Cobbing: Early Recordings, compiled by Steve Cleary and Jennifer Cobbing, (London: British Library, 2009)
Constellation: Alice Notley: The Sound Of The Pines, Intercapillary Space, ed. Edmund Hardy and Carol Watts, published as part of Symposium proceedings on the work of Alice Notley at Birkbeck University of London, 2008.
Poetry
Past Simple Issue 6 (2009), Veer Off (2008), Onedit Issue 11 (2008) Stimulus Respond: Time (2008) Skin (2009) Cannibal Spices 1 (2008)Forum Klatch (2009). I have performed my work at: The Leather Exchange (Crossing the Line 2009), The Foundry (Openned 2008 & Disposable Venus Bits 2009), The Wigmore Hall (Voice works 2008 & 2009), The Horse Hospital (Birkbeck Textmusictextmusic Symposium 2009) and The Poetry Café (La Langoustine Est Morte 2009). Collaborations with composer Edward Nesbit have included, Portmanteaux (2008) (www.openned.com) and Soundings (2009) (Edwardnesbit.com)
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