You wander countless streets
pass a pandemic that seems
to go on forever.
But nothing is eternal.
Photography © John Stadnicki, 2020
London
Exit and Antiexit
London, March, 2019
London, March, 2019
London, March, 2019
London, March, 2019
London, March, 2019
London, March, 2019
Stroud Book Festival Poetry Night, 9th November, 7.30pm
The Stroud Book Festival is thrilled to once again be hosting an eclectic line-up of poets and poetry from Gloucestershire and beyond.
The first poet on the bill is multi-award-winning poet and broadcaster, Daljit Nagra, on Thursday 8th November at Wycliffe College, one of the festival’s splendid sponsors. Nagra, who was the first ever poet in residence at BBC Radio 4, will be reading from his latest book, ‘British Museum’, as well as earlier books, including the Forward Prize-winning ‘Yes We Have Coming to Dover!’
“He’s a marvellous reader of his work,” says Adam Horovitz, who will be introducing him on the night, “and his questing, questioning, witty and politically pertinent poems are well worth discovering aloud as well as on the page.”
On Friday 9th November, the Stroud Book festival Poetry Night offers up a wonderfully varied and immersive evening of readings, performance and music by a hand-picked bill of acclaimed poets, in two parts.
The first part brings together three poets with Gloucestershire connections: Kate Carruthers Thomas, Patrick Mackie and Maria Stadnicka. It closes with acclaimed Welsh poet and singer Paul Henry and will be compered by Adam Horovitz.
“On Saturday 10th November we’ll be celebrating the work of Gloucestershire poet and composer Ivor Gurney with a one-woman show starring writer and actor Jan Carey, to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of World War One,” says the festival’s artistic director Caroline Sanderson. “Author, Composer, Soldier-of-a-sort: The Life and Work of Ivor Gurney is fresh from an acclaimed run at the Edinburgh Fringe this summer and we are delighted to bring the show to Stroud.
“We round off our poetry programme on Sunday 11th November with a magical family event inspired by nature,” adds Caroline. “We hope that children of all ages will come and meet Frann Preston Gannon, illustrator of the poetry anthology I-am-the-seed-that-grew-the-tree.
“It’s a glorious new gift anthology of 365 nature poems for children, spanning over 400 years of poetry, and including the work of poets as diverse as William Blake, Roger McGough, Carol Ann Duffy, John Agard, Eleanor Farjeon and William Wordsworth. As well as a chance to enjoy the poetry-telling, Frann will be encouraging children aged 6 and above to create and illustrate their very own nature poem.”
How to book tickets:
In person: at The Subscription Rooms, Stroud
By phone: by calling 01453 760900
Online at https://stroudbookfestival.org.uk
EVENFALL – The Narrative of a Sound
I finally met the musician Andrew Heath in 2017 at the launch of my book Imperfect having previously written a few poems inspired by his third album Europa. His music talks in a quiet, subtle voice about the changing world around us, it points out the fine details of a moment of silent reflection, a moment which only requires one to be still and to observe. The colours, the speed, the flight, the descent, the little fragments of life.
Andrew Heath performing at The Seventh Wave Festival. 2017. Blue Orange Theatre. Birmingham. U.K. Photo: © Alexander Caminada, 2017
Andrew Heath has spent over twenty years producing and composing experimental music. He has collaborated with Peter Maynard (Dust and Threshold, 2016, Disco Gecko Recordings, UK), the legendary musician Hans-Joachim Roedelius and the composer Christopher Chaplin (Triptych in Blue, 2017, Disco Gecko Recordings, UK), the Dutch guitarist Anne Chris Bakker (Lichtzen, 2017, White Paddy Mountain, Japan) and he is currently working on a joint project with the Mercury Award nominated Toby Marks (Banco de Gaia).
A few months ago, Andrew invited me to collaborate towards his fifth solo album Evenfall due to be released later on this year. Several weeks after we completed the recording, inspired by the subtlety of his new album, I went back to his studio in Stroud and invited him to talk about his fascination with silences and with pauses. Over many cups of freshly brewed coffee we talked about the way we experience the world, through rhythm and speed, but Andrew explained how one could transform a world with only one sound.
Recording the scissors
MS: Would you place your music within the limits of a particular genre?
AH: As my music has developed, it seems to occupy different spaces. There are many names for this musical area I feel drawn to. Some call it ‘ambient’ but this is quite a broad term. I prefer to use words like ‘lower-case’, ‘quiet’, music without beats and without words and, I know people would then ask what is left but of course to me, the answer is, everything is left.
I became aware of music through listening to the world around me as a very young boy and one of my prized memories and an important formative sound moment in my life, was when my father came home from work with an old reel-to-reel tape machine. I was intrigued to discover I could record sounds on it and play them at different speeds, or turn the tape over and play it backwards. I had a microphone which I’d started using and I remember recording the sound of a pair of dressmaking scissors my mother had. When I played the recording back and slowed it right down it sounded like somebody had drawn a sword. From that moment, recording and transforming sound was something I would be constantly drawn to.
Andrew Heath. Stroud. Gloucestershire. U.K. Photo: © Alexander Caminada
MS: In terms of influences and directions…?
AH: Many things but certainly other musicians and their work. I am inspired by the American pianist Harold Budd, who worked with Brian Eno. I love his sense of timing. His playing is like notes falling downstairs, they just cascade in a beautifully ad-hoc way. I’m very interested in other experimental musicians like Roedelius and the Japanese sound artist, Sawako. An exciting recent discovery for me is German YouTuber, Hainbach who works a great deal with tape, and due to his music, I’ve begun using dictaphones which is an interesting new development for me. However, I think the biggest influence is the environment. The sound around us is music. It could be the song of a bird, which is very beautiful, but for me it can also be planes, my fridge makes amazing sounds. Any noises from our inside or outside spaces.
MS: Are you trying to make people aware of what surrounds us or is your music a product of your own reflection about the world and the passing of time?
AH: I am not trying to educate an audience but this is very personal music. Like an artist who is process lead, I am very interested in taking ‘found’ raw material from the environment around me and then processing and ‘treating’ these recordings building layer upon layer of sound. In my case, the pigments that I use are the piano, guitar and ‘found’ sounds. Where an artist will choose a brush, a pencil or a knife, I will use computers, software and tape.
Spaces between notes
MS: You use ‘found’ sounds as you call them, ‘raw materials’ from nature, being open to the randomness around you, but then you process it using technology.
AH: Yes, true, but I am being selective on the technology I use though or approve of. For me, the fascination of transforming, changing, processing sounds is all consuming and you can’t do that without technology – typically very modern technology. I start with just a few sounds, listen to the interaction between them, go down the rabbit hole and realise suddenly, I have the beginnings of an idea.
In my sound world, I try to find and then follow a path, as I go along, I become a collector of things. It could be a piece of wood, a stick, a stone and put them in my imaginary backpack. But then, as I build it up and up and up I realise that it becomes heavy and I leave stuff behind. I leave spaces between notes to reach an equilibrium.
MS: I understand that when you start to work on an album it can begin with something random. What inspired the album Evenfall? 
AH: I was deep in the Norfolk countryside – a real wilderness area with little woods and lakes. I was interested in making longer field recordings. I stood there recording in one place for about two hours. And it got darker and darker and darker. It started to rain. It was a magic moment of stillness that really informed the music on Evenfall.
To add to the magic, I must mention the amazing contribution from the young musician Lydia Kenny, Gloucestershire Young Musician of the Year 2018 who so kindly gifted me such beautiful soprano saxophone lines on the title track, ‘The Still of Evenfall’.
MS: When will the album be available and what follows for you this year?
AH: The album will be launched by Disco Gecko Recordings on 21st September 2018 at The Old Church, London and it will be available on ITunes, Spotify, Amazon as well as in CD format. Prior to this, I will be performing with Toby Marks at Extreme Chill Festival, Reykjavik, Iceland, 6-9 September 2018.
©Maria Stadnicka, 2018
World Cup Suburbia
Photography: ©John Stadnicki, 2018
Migration Stories – Cultural Exchange Project initiated by Univ. of Gloucestershire at Museum in the Park
A week to go! 12th November 2017 from 10.30 am!
So happy to be part of this and to support an excellent project!
Migration Stories / A Cultural Exchange which celebrates the diversity and the powerful cultural impact of our migrants’ stories and experiences.
‘Spoken languages can both unite and separate human kind. Through education we can learn to speak other languages and this entitles us to appreciate cultures around us. However, linguistics alone are just one conduit of understanding – our sense of what is to be human in the world is also built on non-linguistic cultural experiences – we learn through stories, legends, music, food, dance, festivals, artefacts and images.‘ (Excerpt from Daniel Barenboim, on the 16th July 2017, in an impromptu speech at the Proms Albert Hall.)
Photograph: ©John Stadnicki
12th November 2017 at Museum in the Park, Stroud, Gloucestershire is the first part of a beautiful cultural project which will continue and will develop over the next three months.
The workshop will start at 10.30am at Museum in the Park and will bring together narrators, MA illustrators, poets, writers and photographers.
At 11am we will invite illustrators, photographers, writers, students to listen and to be inspired by the unique stories and memories of those who have experienced the joy, the pain, the comic, the humane journey of those, amongst us, arrived from somewhere else.
The narrators Anita Roy, Dolores Phelps, Maria Stadnicka, Fumio Obata, Ro Saul, John Stadnicki will tell us their memories.
Lunch time – bring and share food from our own heritage
Photograph: © John Stadnicki ‘Portrait – Mr. Sova’
The afternoon will create opportunities for smaller groups to discuss in detail elements of the stories and will begin to consolidate ideas for creative responses.
The creative responses will be completed by 6th December 2017 and a small dedicated team will produce a beautiful new Riso book, ready for the launch on the 22nd of January 2018.
Partners involved: University of Gloucestershire, University of Winchester, SGS Stroud College, Museum in the Park, Stroud, Gloucestershire.
We are looking forward to your participation and contribution!
The next event will on the 22nd November 2017 at Museum in the Park, Stroud, Gloucestershire:
Chaired by Dolores Phelps, MPhil/PhD Researcher, Illustration
9.30 Coffee and introductions
10am start
Introduction by Dolores Phelps and Jen Whiskerd
10.15 Presentation by Andrew Melrose
10.45 Presentation by Adelaide Morris
11.15 Presentation by Olivier Kugler
12.00 Lunch
1.00 Presentation by Fumio Obata
1.30 Presentation by Dolores Phelps
2.00 Presentation by TBA OR Panel discussion
2.30 Panel discussion/Q&A – Olivier, Adelaide, Andrew
3pm Closing remarks.
3.30 Close
Come along and get involved!
Thought
Tomorrow will come with a sunny spell,
the rain will stop at the border so
we will begin the long-waited rebellion,
as they say,
at the right moment.
To satisfy our need for greatness,
we will politely ask the just questions and
sit on the pew
in return for the hand-written answer.
We will finally go home,
or so we believe,
to master the only remedy left for pain – patience.
Photograph: @John Stadnicki, ‘Street Cafe’
Exile
Witness to a repeated history
in exile I learn a new language
facing the border control
at Heathrow Airport I wear my mother’s coat
ready for a winter of politics
when I need to
I keep my mouth shut I change my name
to look just like her
white and uncomfortable
the blinding sun has been washed and
smells of violets
people are happy
in such a beautiful land
nobody minds me
amongst
wrapped-well-packed boxes
brushing the dust off velvet cutlery
the only remains
of life before baptism.
photographs: copyright@John Stadnicki, 2016
Games During the Cold War
The winter Clara and I secretly discovered socialism
we had nothing left in the house
that was worth burning.
The frost surrounded the bedroom,
we talked to keep warm
and I suggested to write on the walls.
We used the kitchen knife to sharpen crayons
and kept at it for a couple of hours.
‘All western countries, enemies of the people!
Kill the foreigners!
Kill Ronald Reagan!’
I thought Ro-nald was such a bad name
for a man who never wrote children books,
probably he deserved to die.
My spelling was not very good at that age,
so the room filled with rainbows instead.
Clara and I laughed.
At that point, we felt hungry and I remembered
mother kept the bible covered with cloth
on top of the fridge
so I lifted the shiny red cover, sliced it in very small pieces
and added water and salt.
The feast carried on for a bit.
Clara and I chewed with determination several chapters.
We almost got half way through
when I read: ‘Then there shall be a time of trouble …for
every one that shall be found written in the book.’
And then, in the middle of our small apartment,
the game stopped.
I went back to the wall
and changed the words around.
‘Ro-land, orphan but free’.
Photograph: @John Stadnicki, ‘Piazza’, 2016
Bad Luck
The other day I had a fall in the bathroom
and cracked two ribs.
I have a black eye and a swollen knee.
Google says I should end up with a persistent cough and
the doctor recommends to avoid
laughter, hic-ups, children, smiling people.
Yesterday, I burnt my left hand with boiling steam,
I cursed and dropped the kettle on the floor,
then smashed the kitchen window with my fist.
Today I am definitely going to die so
I have now set fire to the house
ready to lie in bed wrapped up in wet blankets.
My next door neighbour pops by to say that
winter is about to settle in and
he ran out of tea bags.
Maria Stadnicka 