Celebrate the remarkable career of Niall McDevitt (1967 – 2022), a freethinking poet of Blakean visions and activist-psychogeographer who uncovered the steps of many great poets. This retrospective of McDevitt’s published work at the National Poetry Library features Iain Sinclair, Robert Montgomery and Greta Bellamacina, James Byrne, and MacGillivray. Each will perform works from across one of McDevitt’s sage, solemn, and witty collections: b/w (2010), Porterloo (2012), Firing Slits (2016) and London Nation (2022). McDevitt’s death at the age of 55 propelled him to greater recognition, leaving behind a mythical, radical and musical legacy. His spirit lives on in the community of poets, writers, musicians and artists who admire his wild offerings. Gather this evening to pay tribute.

Wed 21 Feb, 8pm.

Tickets: £7 (available from the Southbank Centre).

The furious terrors flew around

It's hard to think of two English artists who seem more diametrically opposed than William Blake and Francis Bacon. While one is renowned as England's greatest religious artist, the other is equally renowned for the atheism of his oeuvre. Though Bacon hated Blake's art, he was still fascinated by the man. Bacon had a copy of Blake's life-mask in his Reece Mews studio, and - working from a b/w photo - painted a series of six discomfiting studies.

McDevitt's walk begins in Mayfair where Blake lived in obscurity and Bacon first exhibited Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion. It then explores the 18th century Soho that was Blake's birthplace alongside the 20th century Soho that was Bacon's playground.

2pm. £12. Meet at 17 South Molton Street near Bond Street tube. Approx two and a half hours ending in Soho. Please click here for tickets.

As a new heaven is begun, and it is now thirty-three years / since its advent, the Eternal Hell revives. And lo! Swedenborg / is the angel sitting at the tomb: his writings are the linen clothes folded up.

As Swedenborg was the mystical teacher who later 'turned on' great Europeans such Balzac, Baudelaire and Strindberg, so he had performed a similar service for Blake at the time of the French Revolution. For some, Swedenborg seems to prophesy Blake.

For others, he is a figure of fun, who has never fully recovered from Blake's satirical portrait in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. The two seem to appear together in Blake's recurring image of London as an old man led by a child.

McDevitt's walk begins at the site of Swedenborg's burial, ends at the site of his final London dwelling-place and death in 1772, and will try to locate the site of the Church of the New Jerusalem where Blake and Catherine attended a weeklong conference in 1789.

2pm. £12. Meet outside Shadwell DLR. 2pm. Approx three hours ending at Farringdon tube. Please click here for tickets.

They groan’d aloud on London Stone / They groan’d aloud on Tyburns Brook

In 1803 William Blake returned to London, but was still facing a sedition trial in Sussex in early 1804. Finding himself living within view of the disused site of Tyburn and on a street where the River Tyburn was flowing directly underneath, he developed a new humanitarian symbol for the final phase of his spiritual polemic.

McDevitt's walk joins the course of the River Tyburn at Baker Street, finds the site of the lost medieval Tyburn Church, and tries to locate the mysterious 'Tyburn Brook'.

2pm. £12. Meet outside Baker Street tube by the statue of Sherlock Holmes. Approx two and a half hours ending at Marble Arch tube. Please click here for tickets.

Thence to Bethlehem where was builded / Dens of despair in the house of bread:

When William Blake died in 1827 a spate of posthumous articles appeared in various magazines questioning his sanity. One hoax article even claimed to have interviewed Blake in Bethlehem Hospital where he had supposedly been an inmate for twenty years. In Blake's own writings, though Jerusalem is namechecked countless times, Bethlehem is only mentioned once, disparagingly.

McDevitt's walk takes in the site of London's three historic Bethlehem Hospitals, and follows Los's route in Jerusalem from the Tower of London to the 'Dens of despair in the house of bread' aka Bedlam.

2pm. £12. Meet on Liverpool Street itself outside Liverpool Street tube. Approx three hours ending North Lambeth tube. Please click here for tickets.

Washington, Franklin, Paine, and Warren, Gates, Hancock, and Green / Meet on the coast glowing with blood from Albion’s fiery Prince.

Though most biographers accept there was an acquaintanceship between the philosopher Paine and the poet-painter Blake, there has been little attempt to imagine the massive impact the connection might have had on the younger man.

The 50-something firebrand must have been the most exciting person Blake had ever met. Did Paine radicalise Blake? To what extent did Blake homage Paine in the character Orc, and rebuke Paine in the character Urizen?

McDevitt's walk progresses from Angel to Soho locating the disappeared streets where Paine held court to literary London in 1791 and where Catherine Blake died a lonely widow on 18 Oct 1831.

2pm. £12. Meet outside Angel tube. Approx two and a half hours ending at Oxford Circus tube. Please click here for tickets.

People who’ve experienced homelessness have particular experiences of quarantine and social distancing. The insecurity and isolation all too familiar to the homeless are now felt widely through our locked down world. In our separation there are opportunities for connection. A chance to build solidarity.

Join us for an evening with the I Am Not Who You Think I Am writing collective. Formed out of weekly sessions in East London’s Crisis Skylight under the tuition of novelist Miranda and New River Press this intense, playful, and extraordinary group have spent the lockdown penning masterpieces. This online event will be the premiere for many of them.

Let’s celebrate the salvations of poetry: shock treatment for the empathetic imagination. Laments for loved ones. Dream-songs of liberation. In times of crisis they offer relief and hope. Challenges to the problems of reality so personal and so rich.

The event will start on Youtube at 7pm on Thursday October 29th. Click here for more information. Please ‘Set Reminder’ for the video, and subscribe to the New River Press Youtube account.

Poetry Against Homelessness: an evening of wild and inspiring poetry and music performances by people who have experienced homelessness and the poets who have tutored them. In celebration of the project I AM NOT WHO YOU THINK I AM. Since June 2019 New River have teamed up with novelist Miranda Gold to facilitate workshops and one-to-one surgeries at Crisis Skylight. These have been led by established poets who lend their time to work towards creating an anthology of poetry by people who have experienced homelessness. The poetry community born out of this has thrived on page and in performance. Following a wonderful night at Pentameters Theatre in November 2019 and sold out show at Housmans Books February 2020 I AM NOT WHO YOU THINK I AM returns to the Pentameters for another evening of Poetry Against Homelessness. Tickets £10 on door, £8 in advance (or limited £4 concession/ low wage tickets). Please click here to buy tickets. To guarantee a space we recommend buying tickets in advance. Facebook event here. Doors 7pm. Friday 3rd April 2020. Pentameters Theatre, Above The Horseshoe pub, 28 Heath St, London NW3 6TE (near Hampstead station).

LIVE MUSIC FROM
SOPHIE NAUFAL
DELILAH MONTAGU
CHARLOTTE CANNON
VINYL DJ SETS FROM
SCRATCHIN’ SACHIN
FLORENCIA LUCILA
(+ SUPRISE POETRY READINGS)
A PARTY HOSTED BY POETRY PUBLISHER NEW RIVER PRESS TO WELCOME THE NEW DECADE AND DANCE TO ROCKSTEADY / RNB / PSYCHE ROCK / PUNK / DISCO MUSIC WITH ALL OF OUR FRIENDS
At Laylow, 10 Golborne Road, W10 5PE (nearest station Westbourne Park). Tickets online are £5. But for this special January event we have unlimited GUESTLIST. Email your name to newriver@thenewriverpress.com and we’ll put you on the guestlist. Or write it on the Facebook event here.

Coinciding with the major Tate Britain William Blake exhibition (September ‘19 - February ‘20), Niall McDevitt will lead five William Blake ‘wandering lectures’ in North, South, East, West, and Central London. The final walk is West: Jerusalem's Pillars - a Blake walk from Tyburn to Primrose Hill. As well as exploring the sites where Blake lived, worked and studied, the series also explores site that Blake mythologised in his poetry and art. The single most important of those sites to the mature Blake was Tyburn, site of public executions from 1196-1783. McDevitt also locates the fascinating site of his wife Catherine Blake's widowhood and tells the horrifying story of what happened to Blake's manuscripts and copperplates after her death. The walk culminates at the bardic site of Primrose Hill with its wonderful monument to Blake's conversation with 'the Spiritual Sun'. En route McDevitt will try to pinpoint the visionary site of Jerusalem's pillars, tracing it to a childhood memory of visiting The Jews Harp Tavern

THE FIELDS from Islington to Marybone,
To Primrose Hill and Saint John’s Wood,
Were builded over with pillars of gold;
And there Jerusalem’s pillars stood.

Meeting point: Under Marble Arch (the arch itself, not the station!). 1pm-4pm. £10. Tickets here. Or you can buy all five walks for the price of three! Discounted multi buy here.

Coinciding with the major Tate Britain William Blake exhibition (September ‘19 - February ‘20), Niall McDevitt will lead five William Blake ‘wandering lectures’ in North, South, East, West, and Central London. The forth is North: William Blake and the Visionary Poets of Hampstead. Though William Bake never lived in Hampstead, he had a lifelong association with the area and was even offered a rent free home there in his final years, which he agonisedly turned down. McDevitt traces the exemplary friendship between Blake and his enlightened patron John Linnell, as well as discussing Blake in a pantheon of great mystical poets all of whom passed though Hampstead during the Romantic and Modernist eras. This eco-immersive walk will finish with a stroll across the heath to find one of the least known but most intellectually historic homes in London, Wyldes Farm in North End.

'Because I was happy upon the heath, / And smiled among the winter's snow, / They clothed me in the clothes of death, / And taught me to sing the notes of woe.'

Meeting point: Hampstead Station. 1pm-3.30pm. £10. Tickets here. Or you can buy all five walks for the price of three! Discounted multi buy here.

Coinciding with the major Tate Britain William Blake exhibition (September ‘19 - February ‘20), Niall McDevitt will lead five William Blake ‘wandering lectures’ in North, South, East, West, and Central London. The third is South: A William Blake / Arthur Rimbaud Walk. This walk brilliantly combines an exploration of Arthur Rimbaud's Waterloo alongside William Blake's Lambeth, passing through the fragments of Georgian and Victorian London that still remain to bear witness. Rimbaud lived in Waterloo in 1874, while Blake had been a longterm resident of North Lambeth from 1790-1800. Though it's not known if Rimbaud had read or even heard of Blake, McDevitt offers a unique and plausible account of how he might easily have done so - as well as masterfully comparing Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell and Rimbaud's A Season in Hell as apocalyptic prose poems.

'As I was walking among the fires of hell, delighted with the enjoyments of Genius; which to Angels look like torment and insanity...'

Meeting point: Blackfriars Bridge (southern end). 1pm-3.30pm. £10. Tickets here. Or you can buy all five walks for the price of three! Discounted multi buy here.

Coinciding with the major Tate Britain William Blake exhibition (September ‘19 - February ‘20), Niall McDevitt will lead five William Blake ‘wandering lectures’ in North, South, East, West, and Central London. The second is East: A William Blake /Wat Tyler Walk. This walk begins at the site of Blake's much mythologised death in the disappeared street of Fountain Row and finishes at the site of Blake's burial in the dissenters' graveyard at Bunhill Fields. En route it passes through historic sites associated with the Peasant's Revolt of 1381 and the Gordon Riots of 1780, the latter of which was the major popular insurgency of Blake's lifetime. Though Blake himself was caught up in the Gordon Riots more by accident than design, he was sympathetic to the idea of popular revolt and later drew a portrait of Wat Tyler as one of his 'Visionary Heads' series circa 1818.

'Then Old Nobodaddy aloft / Farted and belched and coughed / And said I love hanging and drawing and quartering / Every bit as well as war and slaughtering'

Meeting point: Savoy Hotel (front entrance, off Strand). 1pm-3.30pm. £10. Tickets here. Or you can buy all five walks for the price of three! Discounted multi buy here.

Coinciding with the major Tate Britain William Blake exhibition (September ‘19 - February ‘20), Niall McDevitt will lead five William Blake ‘wandering lectures’ in North, South, East, West, and Central London. The first is Central: William Blake in W1. This walk takes us through much of the London timeline of William Blake, including the site of his birth as well as the one surviving Georgian townhouse where Blake actually lived. McDevitt identifies - street by street - the places where Blake wrote Songs of Innocence, the C of E church where his non-conformist parents were forced to marry, and the Leicester Square scene of the honeymoon with his illiterate but beautiful wife Catherine. Blake appears and reappears in the coffeeshops, beauticians, and bookies of today!

'I write in South Molton Street what I both see and hear'.

Meeting point: The junction of Oxford Street and South Molton Street. 1pm-3.30pm. £10. Tickets here. Or you can buy all five walks for the price of three! Discounted multi buy here.

Join us by the canal for an evening of performances on Word On The Water: The London Bookbarge. Featuring performances by poets from a range of backgrounds who have been working on I Am Not Who You Think I Am - a forthcoming collection of poems and prose poems by people who have experienced homelessness. Presented by New River Press, Crisis, and Miranda Gold. Free, but donations to support the project accepted at event. Facebook event here.

Join us for an night of POETRY and music at North London's widely loved independent book shop, House of Books. We'll have excellent books for sale and performances from New River poets including Ana Sefer, Niall McDevitt, Ithamar Handelman-Smith, Sophie Naufal, Heathcote Ruthven, and Evelyn Enescu. Plus special guest Gboyega Odubanjo! A wonderful poet whose recently pamphlet While I Yet Live was published this year with Bad Betty Press. There will also be readings from poetry collections by Heathcote Williams, Robert Lundquist, as well as from the anthologies Smear: Poems For Girls, and the New River Press 2019 poetry yearbook WHEN THEY START TO LOVE YOU AS A MACHINE YOU SHOULD RUN. Come and spend a special night with us. Facebook event here.

Join us for an evening of countercultural poetry as Greta Bellamacina launches Poemas (2015-2018), her latest collection, published in a bilingual (English/Spanish) edition by Valpaaíso. She will be joined by poets from New River Press reading from current and forthcoming releases, including Robert Montgomery, Niall McDevitt, Brit Parks, Sophie Naufal, and Heathcote Ruthven.

Link on Shakespeare and Co website here.

Crisis, Miranda Gold, and New River Press present I'm Not Who You Think I Am, an evening of performances celebrating poets who have experienced homelessness, by poets from a range of backgrounds. This evening will be a soft launch for a forthcoming poetry project working with poets who've experienced homelessness and exploring the homeless experience more generally. Donations towards the project gratefully accepted. All welcome. Join us at the Crisis Cafe on 11th July, 6 till 9pm. Please register on the Eventbrite link here. Facebook event link here

New River Press is extremely proud to present the London launch of cult US poet Robert Lundquist's collection of poetry After Mozart (Heroin On 5th Street). Lundquist’s poetry is full of a longing to heal and a longing to be healed. Broken romances, addicts, neglected children. His central theme is suffering; how we suffer and the ways in which we experience it. Destitute characters cry out through hallucinatory flowers and insects and ice cubes. Far from hard nosed noir, these voices are cradled softly. Abstract images resist order and build an immersive world that is wholly original. It is almost spiritual, though more intimate than doctrinal. He builds an idiosyncratic surrealism through wild experiments with form inspired by Paul Celan, John Ashbery, and Federico García Lorca. Repetitions and half rhymes drum up strange hymns, and power a tension between overwhelm and control that drives the work into a state of ecstatic compassion. Through he has been published in The Paris Review, The Nation, Raymond Carver's Magazine Quarry West, this is Lundquist's first full length collection of poetry. It contains a lifetime of work previously only available in magazine archives, anthologies, and out-of-print chapbooks. This is rare occasion to see a lost genius perform at the wonderful Housman's Books in Kings Cross, London. He will be welcomed to London with performances from poets Greta Bellamacina, Robert Montgomery, and Ana Seferovic, and haunting melodies from songwriter Sophie Naufal. Friday, 5 July 2019 from 19:00-21:00 at Housmans Books, 5 Caledonian Road, N1 9DX. £3 on door (redeemable against a book purchase). Facebook link here.