Coming soon: ‘even if the signal fails’ by Jill Jones

Black Rider presents the fifth installment in the Lyrics chapbook series, even if the signal fails by Jill Jones.

Featuring new work as well as previously collected poems in publications such as Outcrop: radical Australian poetry of land (Black Rider Press, 2013), ETZ, and Southerly, this new chapbook of seventeen poems will be free to download from the Black Rider Press website.

Jill Jones has published eight full-length books of poetry, most recently The Beautiful Anxiety (Puncher and Wattman, 2014) and Ash Is Here, So Are Stars (Walleah Press, 2012).

Thanks to Annette Willis for the beautiful cover art “Heads in Clouds”.

What others have said 

“Jill Jones is uniquely capable of adjusting the speed and magnitude of your awareness. She shepherds the reader away from expectations s/he may have thought absolute. In “A Moon, a Myth, a Feeler,” Jones recasts sensory perception out of zones of occupation, prompting a natural question, “What sport brought you out here?”. Her casual/causal irony demands precision of thought. Even accidents cease being accidental. Jones’s prowess renders the titular signal moot, replacing it with full belief in a transcendence that relieves the concept of itself.” – Sheila E. Murphy

“The precise and provocative poems collected in even if the signal fails deconstruct the binary opposition between realism and experimentalism effortlessly, presenting the reader with a complex and compelling take on modern life. Jill Jones’ poems are undeniably of our world, of its gritty materiality and linguistic sophistication, but they are far more refractive than reflective. She is both an acute observer of the world of things and an active participant in transforming our perceptions through words. According to the poems in this fascinating new chapbook, she seeks to ‘mend constructed things’ and ‘find truth among tension’. Even if the signal fails is a terrific new addition to this important contemporary poet’s body of work.” – Ali Alizadeh

Pre-sale of ‘Outcrop – radical Australian poetry of land’

Outcrop is a new anthology which collects contemporary radical Australian poetry of land, to be published in July 2013 by Black Rider Press. Delivery of pre-sale purchases will be in July.

Curated by Corey Wakeling and Jeremy Balius, Outcrop transcribes innovative and significant poetical approaches to land at the crossroads of ecologies and language.

The collection, rather than an exhaustive survey, represents a diversity of contemporary Australian radical poetic perspectives. These range from land in content and syntax, to voice, ecology, gesture and land of the body.

These are poetic experiments with landscape and geopolitics, exemplars of radical visions of land.

The anthology is approximately 240 pages in length, with up to 10 pages dedicated to each included poet.

Outcrop features a diversity of contemporary Australian radical poetic perspectives

Outcrop features poetry from Louis Armand, Laurie Duggan, Ali Cobby Eckermann, Kate Fagan, Michael Farrell, Lionel Fogarty, Keri Glastonbury, Matthew Hall, Fiona Hile, Duncan Hose, Jill Jones, John Kinsella, Astrid Lorange, John Mateer, Peter Minter, Sam Langer, Claire Potter, Pete Spence, Nicola Themistes and Tim Wright.

Outcrop is to be launched at ASAL 2013

Outcrop will be launched at the Association for the Study of Australian Literature (ASAL) 2013 Conference at Charles Stuart University in Wagga Wagga.

Held in July, the conference’s theme this year is ‘Country’ with a focus on topics which include the reimagining of the antipodes, discussing notions of country, region and location in literature, the sacred and the profane in country and the interaction between the cosmopolitan and the rural.

Outcrop is available at discounted pre-sale price for 10 days

Outcrop is available at a discounted pre-sale price for the next 10 days only. Save over 20% (including a saving on postage & handling) by pre-ordering Outcrop on Pozible.

Outcrop is available for $20 (inclusive of postage & handling) until 1 June 2013. Once launched at ASAL 2013, ‘Outcrop’ will cost $25 (plus postage & handling).

Also, available for the next 10 days are bundling opportunities, including limited edition printed chapbooks from the Black Rider presents Lyrics chapbook series. This series of chapbooks is usually only available in ebook format. These limited edition printed chapbooks will only be available for purchase as part of the pre-sale of Outcrop and will not be sold again.

For A$30 (inclusive of postage & handling), you can buy a copy of Outcrop at a discounted pre-sale price, plus your choice of one limited edition chapbook of new poetry in the Black Rider present Lyrics series by either Jill Jones, Michael Farrell or Ali Alizadeh.

For A$50 (inclusive of postage & handling), you can buy a copy of Outcrop at a discounted pre-sale price, plus all three limited edition chapbooks of new poetry in the Black Rider presents Lyrics series by Jill Jones, Michael Farrell and Ali Alizadeh.

For A$70 (inclusive of postage & handling), you can buy a copy of Outcrop at a discounted pre-sale price, plus all three limited edition chapbooks of new poetry in the Black Rider presents Lyrics series by Jill Jones, Michael Farrell and Ali Alizadeh, plus a discounted copy of Kirk Marshall’s debut short fiction collection Carnivalesque, And: Other Stories.

And finally, for the most discounted bundle of them all…

For A$80 (inclusive of postage & handling), you can buy a copy of Outcrop at a discounted pre-sale price, plus all three limited edition chapbooks of new poetry in the Black Rider presents Lyrics series by Jill Jones, Michael Farrell and Ali Alizadeh, plus a discounted copy of Kirk Marshall’s debut short fiction collection Carnivalesque, And: Other Stories, plus a discounted copy of Cottonmouth – An Anthology of New Australian Writing.

All pre-sale orders will be delivered after ASAL 2013 in July.

Put your order in for Outcrop – radical Australian poetry of land.

Coming soon: Black Rider presents Lyrics by Jill Jones

The fifth installment of the Black Rider presents Lyrics series is even if the signal fails, a chapbook of new poetry by Jill Jones.

More information coming soon…

What they’re saying

“Jill Jones is uniquely capable of adjusting the speed and magnitude of your awareness. She shepherds the reader away from expectations s/he may have thought absolute. In “A Moon, a Myth, a Feeler,” Jones recasts sensory perception out of zones of occupation, prompting a natural question, “What sport brought you out here?”. Her casual/causal irony demands precision of thought. Even accidents cease being accidental. Jones’s prowess renders the titular signal moot, replacing it with full belief in a transcendence that relieves the concept of itself.” – Sheila E. Murphy

“The precise and provocative poems collected in even if the signal fails deconstruct the binary opposition between realism and experimentalism effortlessly, presenting the reader with a complex and compelling take on modern life. Jill Jones’ poems are undeniably of our world, of its gritty materiality and linguistic sophistication, but they are far more refractive than reflective. She is both an acute observer of the world of things and an active participant in transforming our perceptions through words. According to the poems in this fascinating new chapbook, she seeks to ‘mend constructed things’ and ‘find truth among tension’. Even if the signal fails is a terrific new addition to this important contemporary poet’s body of work.” – Ali Alizadeh

‘enjambment sisters present’ by Michael Farrell – out now

On the last day of 2012 Black Rider Press is proud to announce the release of enjambment sisters present, a new chapbook by Michael Farrell.

You can download the e-chapbook for free from the Black Rider Press website.

Farrell’s enjambment sisters present is a brilliant plaything, it is lithe and agile, it turns and twists and jumps across the room, finally falling in a writhing heap on the rug. It contains all the joys and “sounds [of] the nest”. Reading it will put the melody in you. – Matthew Hall

For M. Hall’s full essay, read the Black Rider Lines post

Coming soon: ‘enjambment sisters present’ by Michael Farrell

On the last day of 2012, Black Rider Press will publish Michael Farrell’s new chapbook ‘enjambment sisters present’.

This is the fourth instalment of the Black Rider presents Lyrics series. This chapbook will be offered as a free ebook download.

“Farrell’s ‘enjambment sisters present’ is a brilliant plaything, it is lithe and agile, it turns and twists and jumps across the room, finally falling in a writhing heap on the rug. It contains all the joys and “sounds [of] the nest”. Reading it will put the melody in you.” – Matthew Hall

Black Rider presents The Diamond and the Thief – April ’11 edition

Artwork by Ryan Michael Swearingen (www.myeyemachine.com)

…and now on to the April edition of our minizine as if in a glass darkly.

In this edition Ali Alizadeh starts talking La Pucelle-blues straight outta Orléans.

Look homeward, angels!

Jeremy
The Black Rider

Black Rider presents The Diamond and the Thief – September ’10

…and now on to the September edition of our minizine, waltzing into town in a fancy suit like the Master for his Margarita.

In this edition Mark William Jackson locks into the groove, Christopher Currie harmonises with castaways, Nathan Hobby charts the path to indestructibility and Shane Jesse Christmass wishes happy birthday to a war.

Look homeward, angels!

Jeremy
The Black Rider

Time Off Magazine and Scene Magazine get to know the Black Rider

Hey, I got a mention in the 59th verse of Emily XYZ’s one-verse-per-day twitter poem.

59: who’s best / andy angela jeremy tiggy ross? graham pam johnpaul angel darkwing ken? ghostboy who reads bowie upstairs as baby sleeps?

Brisbane’s Scene Magazine did a lil article on the Queensland Poetry Festival and briefly chatted with me in their Festival in Preview article (scroll down).

Time Off Magazine did a longer feature, but they’ve taken it down already, so here it is:

A MAN OF HIS WORDS

By Helen Stringer

The Queensland Poetry Festival takes over the Judith Wright Centre next week; HERE HELEN STRINGER talks to one of its performers, Perth poet Jeremy Balius.

The mention of spoken word poetry might conjure images of a smoky basement room filled with black-cloaked figures gently clicking their fingers in approval as a pale, malnourished, art school dropout woefully laments the demise of intellectualism in rhyming couplets and a dry monotone, but it’s a misconception that Perth-based poet and performer Jeremy Balius – soon to be in town for the Queensland Poetry Festival – is quick to dispel.
The reality, he explains, is a lot more engaging and evocative than the traditional “Beatnik berets and black turtlenecks” perception would suggest.
“Spoken word as a scene or an experience is a lot closer to what you would experience in theatre,” he says. “So the reasons for going to the theatre would outweigh the reasons for going to the cinema because the actual human emotion element is happening in front of you. That’s what’s going on with spoken word poetry. You’re experiencing it in real time; it’s happening in front of you. It’s a whole lot more engaging than the cliché back-room hokey perception.”

Originally from Los Angeles, Balius – who describes his own work as “more vehement and excitable than the usual” – came across spoken word through music: “the writing of it came from being heavily involved in music and being lyrically bent. The more and more you head down that path you end up coming to the end result which is poetry.”

His immersion in the world of poetry – aside from writing and performing he’s also ventured into indie publishing with Black Rider Press – has lead to his appearance at the Queensland Poetry Festival, an honour, he jokes that must be a “clerical error”. As he says, “it’s completely amazing that of the people coming from WA I’m coming up with Andrew Taylor and Andrew Burke, two stalwarts in WA. These guys are pinnacles in the poetry scene and that alone is a huge honour for me.”

While performance is obviously inherent to all spoken word, Balius is particularly diligent in delineating between printed and spoken poetry.
“I’m probably more militant on this issue than most people… It’s hard to separate myself from the performance aspect. When I read work that I’m going to perform bound within it is the delivery and the movement and the drama of it all and the personal engagement with the audience… It’s about being able to step up on stage and deliver and people just being so blown away that they’re actively responding; they’re so in the moment and not containing themselves.”

Indeed, he’s probably one of the few poets who can claim the dubious honour of having evoked a response so uncontained they’re forced off stage for fear of provoking a riot. Admittedly, the event in question occurred after a band Balius was performing spoken word with was mistakenly booked to play a Bhangra – a very specific type of Indian dance music – festival.

“It went sour so fast and people responded with such vehemence and youthful jubilee that quickly the pandemonium rose to where there’re guys starting to fight and there’s just complete chaos. We got cut after the second song.”  Thankfully, audience responses are usually more positive and rarely involve violent retaliation.

“My favourite response is not even a favourable one but I use it as my mantra. Someone came up to me and he said, ‘You should probably know that we don’t get people like you around here that often…I think I liked it but I don’t know if I should.’” It’s an apt mantra for a spoken word poet: I liked it, but I don’t know if I should.

Black Rider presents The Diamond and the Thief – July ’10

…and now on to the July edition of our minizine, with more unabashed anticipation than the Diviners.

In this edition Michael Farrell sees the imagined, Tiggy Johnson lays out hungover logic and Carly-Jay Metcalfe hears a tale in the howling wind and the beating sun.

Look homeward, angels!

Jeremy
The Black Rider