BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//eroding empire - ECPv6.15.14//NONSGML v1.0//EN CALSCALE:GREGORIAN METHOD:PUBLISH X-WR-CALNAME:eroding empire X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://www.eroding.org.uk X-WR-CALDESC:Events for eroding empire REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H X-Robots-Tag:noindex X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:Europe/London BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0000 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:BST DTSTART:20250330T010000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0000 TZNAME:GMT DTSTART:20251026T010000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0000 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:BST DTSTART:20260329T010000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0000 TZNAME:GMT DTSTART:20261025T010000 END:STANDARD BEGIN:DAYLIGHT TZOFFSETFROM:+0000 TZOFFSETTO:+0100 TZNAME:BST DTSTART:20270328T010000 END:DAYLIGHT BEGIN:STANDARD TZOFFSETFROM:+0100 TZOFFSETTO:+0000 TZNAME:GMT DTSTART:20271031T010000 END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260624T150000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260624T200000 DTSTAMP:20260622T213110 CREATED:20260601T023025Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260622T150650Z UID:6500-1782313200-1782331200@www.eroding.org.uk SUMMARY:Reclaim the City of London: MayDay Rooms and Rebel Tours workshop and walking tour DESCRIPTION:Join MayDay Rooms and Rebel Tours for a critical exploration of London’s financial district\, examining the banks and insurance companies complicit in financing weapons\, fossil fuels\, border violence and genocide\, while reflecting on the long histories of resistance to corporate power in the City. \nThe event will take place in two parts: an afternoon workshop and an evening walking tour. \nDuring the workshop (3–5 pm)\, we will delve into archival materials documenting struggles against privatisation\, financial power and the corporate takeover of public space in central London\, including Reclaim the Streets’ reissues of Financial Crimes\, produced around the mobilisation against the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Summit in Prague in September 2000\, and Evading Standards\, created for the 1999 “June 18th” Carnival Against Capital in the City of London. Together\, these materials offer a window into traditions of direct action\, counter-mapping and anti-capitalist organising that sought to disrupt the infrastructures of global finance. \nTickets for the workshop (3-5pm) here \nOn the walking tour (6–8 pm)\, we will trace the histories of financial institutions embedded in the City of London — many of which are deeply connected to the British Empire\, colonial extraction\, and enduring systems of global inequality. Moving through the banking district\, we will examine how contemporary finance continues to shape political violence\, ecological collapse and policed migration regimes across the world. With an eye to the archival workshop\, we will discuss the possibilities for resistance today. \nTickets for the walking tour (6-8 pm) here URL:https://www.eroding.org.uk/event/reclaim-the-city-of-london-mayday-rooms-and-rebel-tours-workshop-and-walking-tour/ LOCATION:Mayday Rooms\, 88 Fleet Street\, EC4Y 1AE CATEGORIES:Gatherings,Presentations END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260624T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260624T203000 DTSTAMP:20260622T213110 CREATED:20260611T023004Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260622T150651Z UID:6962-1782327600-1782333000@www.eroding.org.uk SUMMARY:MAGAZINE LAUNCH: WEEKEND DESCRIPTION:COME AND CELEBRATE THE LAUNCH OF A BOLD NEW POETRY MAGAZINE AT HOUSMANS. FEATURING LUKE ROBERTS\, HARRIET ROSE AND OTHERS. \nThis is a free event\, please book your tickets below. Feel free to BYOB. 🙂 \nShare this: \n Share on X (Opens in new window) \n X Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) \n Facebook Share on Insta (Opens in new window) \n Insta \n Like this:Like Loading… URL:https://www.eroding.org.uk/event/magazine-launch-weekend/ LOCATION:Housmans\, 5 Caledonian Road King’s Cross\, N1 9DX CATEGORIES:Presentations END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260626T180000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260626T180000 DTSTAMP:20260622T213110 CREATED:20260609T022946Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260622T150653Z UID:6860-1782496800-1782496800@www.eroding.org.uk SUMMARY:Research is Poetry DESCRIPTION:Research is Poetry: Knots presents our first night of Research is Poetry\, hosted at Pelican House on June 26th from 6-9 pm.  This will be fundraising for our Co-op registering fee\, so we are able to do more noise nights\, develop long form productions\, and host community workshops\, from an art-workers led perspective. If you’re interested in learning more about the Knots Co-operative\, please email us! Research is Poetry is a peer-to-peer learning event inviting Knots collaborators\, alumn\, and audiences to bring in essays\, slides\, poetry\, photography\, and other creative forms of research. We invite you to discuss history\, current events\, politics\, art\, and culture through a class-conscious lens using lived experience\, theory\, and research.  In an era of AI summaries and digital slop\, let’s remember that research is poetry\, and needs us to contextualise it.  Lineup to be released. Submit your presentation here: https://forms.gle/u3RpfkGELYPFkg1k8 Ticket link: https://www.outsavvy.com/event/36941/research-is-poetry URL:https://www.eroding.org.uk/event/research-is-poetry/ LOCATION:Pelican House\, 144 Cambridge Heath Road\, E1 5QJ CATEGORIES:Presentations ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.eroding.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/6860_image_finalrip_0.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260626T183000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260626T183000 DTSTAMP:20260622T213110 CREATED:20260603T142930Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260604T170723Z UID:6530-1782498600-1782498600@www.eroding.org.uk SUMMARY:Club Commons x Feminist Library Book Launch DESCRIPTION:Join us for an intergenerational queer conversation weaving together archival memory\, nightlife history\, and collective futures.  \nThis evening brings together three icons who shaped London’s lesbian and queer scenes from the 1980s and 90s to today: Katherine Griffiths\, DJ and researcher who participated in grassroots lesbian nightlife in London through the 80s and 90s; Yvonne Taylor of Sistermatic\, the pioneering Black lesbian sound system; and Gin of Nite Dykez\, DJ\, promoter\, and event producer\, all of whom feature in the book Club Commons: Moving Bodies to Grow Movements in Queer Nightlife and Beyond by Anjali Prashar-Savoie\, out now with Velocity Press. \nAlongside the talk\, the naked souls oracle will be present to invoke queer clairvoyants of the past to help us resist gentrification of the heart and mind in the present. Drawing on histories unearthed from the 56A Infoshop and Southwark Archives\, Naked Souls is a deck of oracle cards/fortunes/spells\, that invokes obscure queer histories\, to chart alternative maps for our futures. It is playful and sometimes frivolous\, existing in a makeshift between poetry and instruction. \nOriginal archival flyers from the 1980s and 90s will be on display throughout the evening. URL:https://www.eroding.org.uk/event/club-commons-x-feminist-library-book-launch-14/ LOCATION:The Feminist Library\, 161 Sumner Road\, SE15 6JL CATEGORIES:Bookshops/Libraries,Presentations ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://www.eroding.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/6454_image_1_89.jpg END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260626T183000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260626T210000 DTSTAMP:20260622T213110 CREATED:20260611T023007Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260622T150653Z UID:6964-1782498600-1782507600@www.eroding.org.uk SUMMARY:POETRY READING: ELLEN RENTON LAUNCHES 'YOU AND YOURS' DESCRIPTION:Join us for an evening of poetry to mark the launch of Ellen Renton’s new pamphlet. You and Yours: \nSwinging across timelines and from the mundane to the surreal\, You and Yours is a study in grief: how it exists beyond seismic losses in the stories we inherit\, in shifting friendships\, and in uncertain landscapes. These poems celebrate the self as a malleable entity under the influence of all the lives it encounters\, and balance the pain that characterises the loss of a profound connection with the wonder of having it in the first place. \nAbout Ellen Renton: \nEllen Renton is a writer from Edinburgh. Her work has been published in journals including Poetry London\, Gutter\, and Magma\, and she released her debut pamphlet An Eye For An Eye For An Eye with Stewed Rhubarb Press. Her work in theatre has included the one-woman show Within Sight (2020)\, Disciples (2023)\, and PALS (in development in 2026). She has released an EP and the album My Noise is Nothing with electronic musician Lord of the Isles. She holds an MA in Creative Writing: Poetry from the University of East Anglia. \nPlease note this is an externally organised event. Any inquires should be made to: ellenmrenton@hotmail.co.uk \nTICKETS: \nShare this: \n Share on X (Opens in new window) \n X Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) \n Facebook Share on Insta (Opens in new window) \n Insta \n Like this:Like Loading… URL:https://www.eroding.org.uk/event/poetry-reading-ellen-renton-launches-you-and-yours/ LOCATION:Housmans\, 5 Caledonian Road King’s Cross\, N1 9DX CATEGORIES:Presentations END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260704T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260704T203000 DTSTAMP:20260622T213110 CREATED:20260604T142920Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260604T170923Z UID:6591-1783191600-1783197000@www.eroding.org.uk SUMMARY:DREAMS AND GHOSTS WITH DOMINIC PETTMAN & EVERYDAY ANALYSIS DESCRIPTION:Join us for a conversation between two of the most exciting theorists of the digital realm\, Dominic Pettman and Alfie Bown \nWe are delighted to welcome our friends Everyday Analysis back to Housmans for what promises to be another stimulating reflection on the agonies and aporias of contemporary culture. \nThis time we have Dominic Pettman joining us\, to talk about some of the recurrent ideas that animate\,\nhis recent publications\, The Forgetting of Dreams: Selected Oneiric Residues (published by Everyday Analysis) and Ghosting: On Disappearance (Polity\, 2025). \nDominic is emerging as one of our major theorists of the digital world. His work is especially accomplished at interrogating modes of disconnection\, loneliness and alienation that could only really exist now; in an epoch almost entirely mediated through a digital reflection of itself. \nblurbs: \nThe Forgetting of Dreams: Selected Oneiric Residues \nWe process our lives through riddles\, mysteries\, ciphers\, and enigmas – but we hesitate to share these with friends and family. In times gone by\, as for Freud\, dreams were considered a key to cosmic secrets. Today\, in all sorts of ways – both subtle and not – we are discouraged from sharing the content of our dreams\, unless we happen to be indulging in that most anachronistic ritual: lying prostrate on the psychoanalyst’s couch. Anywhere else\, an anecdote that begins\, “Last night I dreamed . . .” is usually met with a sigh and a defensive glazing of the eyes. In our over-burdened world\, any sharing of dreams is always already perceived as over-sharing. Contrary to this\, Pettman argues – the more we share tales of our isolated nocturnal journeys\, the better chance we have to understand the topography of our collective conundrum.  \nGhosting: On Disappearance \nAbandonment is as old as time\, but ghosting is a modern twist on this ancient experience. It translates this age-old phenomenon into our modern world of screens\, delete buttons and blocking options. Ghosting is not only an unpleasant experience\, or cowardly act\, but a symptom of our increasingly spectral – that is\, mediated and virtual – relationship to the world. The overabundance of new modes of communication has invited an almost infinite number of contacts and conversations. At the same time\, it has also offered an unprecedented opportunity for ignoring messages from others. And just as we invented the car crash when we invented automobiles\, we also encouraged ghosting when we created the internet. \nGhosting creates an empty space in our minds: a space faithfully tracing the silhouette of the one who ghosted us. But unlike traditional ghosts\, today’s ghosters simply disappear\, leaving behind a form of haunting that is closer to mourning: mourning for someone who is not in fact dead. In putting a kind of preemptive mourning into our everyday affairs\, ghosting tells us much about the current human relationship – or non-relationship – to a shared sense of mortality\, purpose\, and spirit. \nThis book – the first sustained analysis of ghosting – traces the source of this vexed experience to\, and through\, our current media ecology\, technological networks\, political landscape\, collective psychology\, romantic mantras\, and deep sense of social neglect. \nDominic will be joined by the brilliant Alfie Bown\, Senior Lecturer in Digital Media Culture and Technology at King’s College London. Alfie is the author of numerous brilliant interventions into the worlds of digital studies\, Marxism and psychoanalysis. His most recent books are Alfie Bown\, Post-Comedy (Polity\, 2024) and Dream Lovers: Capitalism and the Gamification of Relationships (London: Pluto\, 2022). \nThis is a free event\, but you can reserve copies of the books through our ticket portal. \nShare this: \nShare on X (Opens in new window) \nX\nShare on Facebook (Opens in new window) \nFacebook\nShare on Insta (Opens in new window) \nInsta \nLike this:Like Loading… URL:https://www.eroding.org.uk/event/dreams-and-ghosts-with-dominic-pettman-everyday-analysis/ LOCATION:Housmans\, 5 Caledonian Road King’s Cross\, N1 9DX CATEGORIES:Bookshops/Libraries,Presentations END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260711T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260711T203000 DTSTAMP:20260622T213110 CREATED:20260602T022924Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260622T150707Z UID:6518-1783796400-1783801800@www.eroding.org.uk SUMMARY:BOOK LAUNCH: KILL BILLIONAIRE with ANDERS LUSTGARTEN DESCRIPTION:Kill Billionaire: The Riotous Revenge Caper You’ve Been Waiting for Kill Billionaire is the best sort of political thriller: gripping\, revenge fueled and unapologetically radical in its politics\, discussing climate change and the elite. \nWhen her home is destroyed in wildfires\, fourteen-year-old Australian outback genius Kayla Connolly decides to hunt down the culprits of climate change: billionaires. She teams up with Mr P\, a giant ex-soldier from Tuvalu whose home is being flooded by rising sea levels. Together\, they find ingenious ways to kill a property developer building on protected wetlands and a mining company CEO poisoning the earth with toxic chemicals. They also find an unexpected ally in Nancy\, a wealthy elderly woman with a shocking past. \nThe trio’s mission soon develops a life of its own\, taking them first to California to crack billionaire tech bros and then to London for superrich oil executives\, spawning a global movement along the way. In pursuit are the FBI and Detective Sergeant Kate Anderson of Scotland Yard\, but Kate is having doubts about whether Kayla is even in the wrong. Will Kayla be able to stay ahead of the game and pull off one final\, remarkable hit? \nWe are delighted that Anders Lustgarten has chosen Housmans as the launch pad for this propulsive\, daringly political work of thriller fiction! \nHe will conversation for around 45 minutes to an hour\, followed by a q&a and signing session. \nAs always\, tickets are priced on a sliding scale. If you are unable to pay for a ticket please do not hesitate to contact us at shop@housmans.com\, and a free ticket will be made available. \nIf you choose ‘book + entry’ your copies of the book will be available to collect on the evening. If you would like to collect it earlier\, or arrange for delivery\, please contact us (postage is £2.95). Telephone 020 7837 4473 or email shop@housmans.com. \nDoors Open at 6:45pm\, Event Starts 7:00. \nShare this: \n Share on X (Opens in new window) \n X Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) \n Facebook Share on Insta (Opens in new window) \n Insta \n Like this:Like Loading… URL:https://www.eroding.org.uk/event/book-launch-kill-billionaire-with-anders-lustgarten-2/ LOCATION:Housmans\, 5 Caledonian Road King’s Cross\, N1 9DX CATEGORIES:Bookshops/Libraries,Presentations END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260718T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260718T210000 DTSTAMP:20260622T213110 CREATED:20260604T022926Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260622T150714Z UID:6585-1784401200-1784408400@www.eroding.org.uk SUMMARY:HOUSING READING SERIES: HUW LEMMEY IN CONVERSATION WITH JULIET JACQUES DESCRIPTION:Aren’t you just SICK of gay fiction about nice boys just trying their best? BOREDof the sort of cosy political satire that makes Alistair Campbell chuckle? \nFINALLY! After years of waiting\, Huw Lemmey’s cult classics are back in print::CHUBZ: The Demonization of My Working Arse and RED TORY: My Corbyn Chemsex Hell\,two novels of terrifying predictive force and eye-watering sexual potency\, an antidoteto the grimly worthy bourgeois queer novels and tedious political fiction of our time.Lemmey’s novels depict the loopy political world of the past decade with the powerof a vicious Cassandra\, imagining a world of Brexit and Trump\, PM’s Boris and Nigel\,years before they came to pass. Set within a London gripped between authoritarianismand a genuine rupture in the healthy sexual order of things\, CHUBZ and RED TORYremain the sleeper hits of our time\, quietly seeding disquiet and insurrection into theover-stimulated lizard brain and under-stimulated rectal ampulla of the GREAT British Public. \nObscene? Potentially. Criminal? Maybe. Sick? Probably. But worth buying? UNDENIABLY! \nJoin the author LIVE and IN FULL FLESHY PERSONHOOD at Housmans\, in conversationwith the esteemed political-cultural powerhouse Juliet Jacques\, to discuss these arse-warping\,mind-bending SATIRES FOR OUR TIME. Run\, don’t walk! \nThis is a free event\, but if you would like to reserve a copy of the book(s)\, you can saw so through the ticket portal \nShare this: \n Share on X (Opens in new window) \n X Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) \n Facebook Share on Insta (Opens in new window) \n Insta \n Like this:Like Loading… URL:https://www.eroding.org.uk/event/housing-reading-series-huw-lemmey-in-conversation-with-juliet-jacques/ LOCATION:Housmans\, 5 Caledonian Road King’s Cross\, N1 9DX CATEGORIES:Bookshops/Libraries,Presentations END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260721T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260721T210000 DTSTAMP:20260622T213110 CREATED:20260618T030725Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260622T150716Z UID:7387-1784660400-1784667600@www.eroding.org.uk SUMMARY:HOUSMANS POETRY SERIES: JD HOWSE DESCRIPTION:It starts with the Buggery Act of 1533. Or perhaps the arrest of Eleanor Rykener. Or perhaps the execution of James Pratt and John Smith. The truism goes that queer people have always been here\, but for as long as there have been written records of us those records have dealt with our suppression\, criminalisation\, and punishment. How can we construct a sense of our own history when its wilful erasure has been violently enacted time and time again across the centuries?  \nComposed over a ten year period\, Noises Again is a hugely ambitious and staggeringly complex literary collage that blurs the lines between literature and visual art. Stringing together scraps of text from history books and pornographic novels\, newspaper clippings and love letters\, drunk sexts and court records\, JD Howse explores the buried\, obscure ephemera of gay history and returns with a text by turns violent\, tragic\, erotic\, and confounding. This is a truly singular book\, defying characterisation\, description\, and logic.  \nOUR POETS JD Howse is a writer who works across poetry\, prose\, and collage. His debut collection Just Meat Not God was published in 2022 and he has published a number of pamphlets and artist’s books. He has a BA in English and an MA in Creative Writing from Royal Holloway\, University of London\, and is the curator of Permeable Barrier.  \nAzad Ashim Sharma is the director of the87press and Editor at Philosophy and Global Affairs\, the CLR James Journal\, and The Hythe Review. He is a PhD Candidate in English and Humanities at Birkbeck College\, University of London. He is the author of three poetry collections\, most recently\, Boiled Owls (Nightboat Books / Out-Spoken Press\, 2024) which was shortlisted for the Jhalak Poetry Prize. His second collection Ergastulum: Vignettes of Lost Time (Broken Sleep Books\, 2022) was the recipient of the Caribbean Philosophical Association’s Guillén Award. In July 2025\, Azad was inaugurated as the Poet Laureate of the Caribbean Philosophical Association. He lives in South London. \nCalliope Michail is a poet and translator\, currently undertaking a PhD at King’s College\, London. She is the Poetry Editor of Stillpoint Journal\, and her work has appeared in various publications. \nVJ René is the author of two pamphlets of poetry\, Scavengers (Salo Press\, 2021) and HYDRA (Marble Poetry\, 2020). Recent critical and creative works appear in Victorian Popular Fictions Journal\, Forum Journal and the Australasian Journal of Victorian Studies.​ \nOliver Zarandi is a writer and filmmaker. His debut\, Soft Fruit In The Sun (Hexus Press)\, was described as being like ‘getting a hug from David Cronenberg.’ His follow-up\, Body Horror\, was shortlisted for the Prototype Prize in 2024. He is currently in development on his first film\, Skinny Boy. \nThis is a free event but please RSVP below. \nShare this: \n Share on X (Opens in new window) \n X Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) \n Facebook Share on Insta (Opens in new window) \n Insta \n Like this:Like Loading… URL:https://www.eroding.org.uk/event/housmans-poetry-series-jd-howse/ LOCATION:Housmans\, 5 Caledonian Road King’s Cross\, N1 9DX CATEGORIES:Presentations END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260722T184500 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260722T210000 DTSTAMP:20260622T213110 CREATED:20260605T022958Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260622T150717Z UID:6660-1784745900-1784754000@www.eroding.org.uk SUMMARY:BOOK LAUNCH: FLOYDS GONE by Jacob A. Smith DESCRIPTION:Come celebrate the launch of a brilliant and daring new short story collection published by eidolon ink \nJacob A. Smith is launching his debut story collection\, Floyds Gone\, at Housmans Bookshop! Please join us on July 22nd to celebrate the release of his book. All author and publisher profits from the evening go to Medical Aid for Palestinians and Lifeshare. Free entry + doors open at 6:45pm \n“When you have them pixelated\, magic occurs. You become the imagination of the technology. Like you’re watching the technology dream.” \n‘A man plans to disappear after his partner becomes pregnant. Films play on loop in a countryside home filled with waste. A violent video appears on an online server where people plot and rate hoaxes. An employee stalks his boss to protect her from a threatening man. Pictures of a burning building are nominated for a major prize. An empty boat returns to shore and the photographer on board has disappeared. \nThese are some of the unsettling\, vivid images that accumulate throughout Floyds Gone\, Jacob A. Smith’s debut story collection. Inhabiting the uncertain space between images\, dreams and reality\, Smith’s stories probe the strange data of our mediated lives. Built around moments of arrival\, departure\, and change\, and a recurring name that may refer to more than one man\, the stories of Floyds Gone are all powerful screenshots of life lived in a world of multiplying images and vanishing selfhood.’ \nPlease note this is an externally organised event. Any inquiries should be made to ‘hello@eidolon.ink’ \nBook a free ticket below\, or reserve a copy of the book. \nIf you choose ‘book + entry’ your copies of the book will be available to collect on the evening. If you would like to collect it earlier\, or arrange for delivery\, please contact us (postage is £2.95). Telephone 020 7837 4473 or email shop@housmans.com. \nDoors Open at 6:45pm\, Event Starts 7:00. \nShare this: \n Share on X (Opens in new window) \n X Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) \n Facebook Share on Insta (Opens in new window) \n Insta \n Like this:Like Loading… URL:https://www.eroding.org.uk/event/book-launch-floyds-gone-by-jacob-a-smith/ LOCATION:Housmans\, 5 Caledonian Road King’s Cross\, N1 9DX CATEGORIES:Presentations END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260723T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260723T210000 DTSTAMP:20260622T213110 CREATED:20260613T022936Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260622T150718Z UID:7034-1784833200-1784840400@www.eroding.org.uk SUMMARY:HOUSMANS POETRY SERIES: JAMES BYRNE DESCRIPTION:Join us for another evening of cutting edge poetry. \nFor this instalment\, we are delighted to welcome the legendary James Byrne to the shop to launch his latest collection The Banality of Power (Broken Sleep Books\, 2026) Joining him we have the incredible Ziba Karbassi and are delight to welcome back long time friend of Housmans Stephen Watts. \nOur Poets: \nZiba Karbassi—born in Tabriz\, northwestern Iran in 1969—began writing poems from an early age. Her first book in Persian was published in her twenties and\, since then\, she has published regularly\, with more than twelve books now available\, both in her mother tongue and internationally. Forced to leave Iran in the early 1980s with her mother and younger sisters\, she has since lived most of her life in London. She is widely regarded as one of the leading poets currently writing in Persian and\, to date\, her work has been translated into more than fifteen languages. Karbassi’s densely revolutionary lyrical writing achieves an intensity of space that is almost unique in contemporary poetry\, melting the valencies of breath into the depths of meaning. She has performed her work widely across Europe and America. She was Chairperson of the Association of Iranian Writers in Exile\, 2002 to 2004 and in 2009 she was awarded the Golden Apple Poetry Prize (Azerbaijan) and served as chair of Exiled Writers Ink from 2012 to 2014 and\, in 2012\, was chosen by the Contemporary Poetics Research Centre (CPRC\, Birkbeck\, University of London) as one of fifteen revolutionary poets in a worldwide survey of published writings from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. From 2019 to 2021\, Karbassi was a director of the Iranian PEN Centre in Exile\, and she continues to work as a committee member and editor with Exiled Writers Ink in London\, always passionately and actively committing her life and work for poetry. \nStephen Watts was born in 1952. His father came from Stoke-on-Trent and his mother’s family from villages high in the Italian and Swiss Alps. He spent very vital time—in place of university—in northern Scotland\, especially the island of North Uist but\, since 1977\, has lived mainly in the richly multilingual communities of Whitechapel in East London. Geographies and location (as also their negative theologies) are urgent to his life and work. Recent books include Ancient Sunlight (Enitharmon\, 2014; reprinted 2020) and Republic of Dogs / Republic of Birds (Test Centre\, 2016; Prototype\, 2020). A 16mm\, 70-minute experimental film—The Republics—was made from the latter by Huw Wahl\, 2019. A collected Journeys Across Breath: Poems 1975-2005 was published by Prototype Publishing in 2022 (reprinted 2025) and A Book of Drawn Poems came out with Joe Hales’s Sylvia imprint in 2025. Watts is also a translator\, working closely with exiled poets and—inter alia—has co-translated Pages from the Biography of an Exile by the Iraqi poet Adnan al-Sayegh (Arc Publications\, 2014)\, Syrian poet Golan Haji’s A Tree Whose Name I Don’t Know (A Midsummer Night’s Press\, 2017) and Reza Baraheni’s Lilith (Tenement Press\, 2023).  His translation research has been the subject of two exhibitions: Swirl Of Words / Swirl Of Worlds\, PEER Gallery (Hoxton\, London)\, and for which he edited a book of that title\, and Explosion Of Words with the Swiss artist Hannes Schüpbach\, which celebrated his 2000 page Bibliography of Modern Poetry in English Translation\, at the Straühof Gallery (Zurich) and Nunnery Gallery (Bow\, London)\, in 2021 and 2022 respectively. \nPoet\, editor and translator\, James Byrne was born near London in 1977. His most recent poetry collection is The Banality of Power\, which received a Poetry Book Society Recommendation.  Other recent books include Nightsongs for Gaia: New and Selected Poems Arc Publications\, 2025) and The Overmind (Broken Sleep Books\, 2024). He has co-translated and co-edited Bones Will Crow\, the first anthology of contemporary Burmese poetry to be published in English (Arc\, 2012) and I am a Rohingya\, the first book of Rohingya refugee poems in English (Arc 2019) after spending some time at Cox’s Bazar refugee camp. His publications in translation include working with Libyan poet Ashur Etwebi (Five Scenes from a Failed Revolution\, 2022)\, and Rohingya poet Ro Mehrooz (Poems Written Through Barbed-Wire Fences\, 2024). Forrest Gander writes that his poetry is ‘like gulping fire-water shots of the world’. The Banality of Power\, launched at this event\, speaks back to aggressors\, corporate power\, beginning with Nazi Adolf Einchmann on trial in a glass cage\, asking: who are the Eichmanns now and how we find a way to move forward in a fractured society and form community.    \nThis is a free event\, but please RSVP below. Feel free to BYOB. \nShare this: \n Share on X (Opens in new window) \n X Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) \n Facebook Share on Insta (Opens in new window) \n Insta \n Like this:Like Loading… URL:https://www.eroding.org.uk/event/housmans-poetry-series-james-byrne/ LOCATION:Housmans\, 5 Caledonian Road King’s Cross\, N1 9DX CATEGORIES:Presentations END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260729T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260729T203000 DTSTAMP:20260622T213110 CREATED:20260604T022927Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260622T150726Z UID:6586-1785351600-1785357000@www.eroding.org.uk SUMMARY:BOOK LAUNCH: INTERNATIONAL FREAK ROBIN FARQUHARSON AND THE DREAM OF PSYCHEDELIC REVOLT DESCRIPTION:M. SYD ROSEN AND OWEN HATHERLEY DISCUSS THE LIFE AND LEGACY OF COUNTERCULTURAL ICON ROBIN FARQUHARSON \n‘Rosen is an intergenerational talent. That is\, he seems to move effortlessly across decades\, from dark matter to illumination; gleaning\, recovering\, challenging\, making new.’ \n Iain Sinclair \nBorn in 1930 into a privileged South African family\, Robin Farquharson was part of a new wave of intellectuals tasked with reimagining society in the wake of World War II—until a phone call from God brought everything crashing down. \nUnder the gaze of the secret police and his own mounting paranoia\, Farquharson fled to Swinging London and tried to reinvent himself as a countercultural guru. Along the way\, he helped to have South Africa banned from the Olympic Games\, authored an unclassifiable memoir of queer street life\, and climbed to the top of the mysterious White Panther Party. Then\, just days after founding the pioneering Mental Patients Union\, flames ripped through his home and Farquharson was gone. \nDrawing on meticulous archival research and extensive new interviews\, International Freak marshals an extraordinary cast of characters in order to tell Farquharson’s story for the first time. Equal parts experimental biography\, social history\, and psychedelic true crime\, this is a portrait of a singular man and the world he sought desperately to transform. \nWe are delighted to welcome M. Syd Rosen (author of this utterly compelling biography) and Owen Hatherley to Housmans to discuss the life of this truly remarkable hero of counter cultural Britain. \nAs always\, tickets are priced on a sliding scale. If you are unable to pay for a ticket please do not hesitate to contact us at shop@housmans.com\, and a free ticket will be made available. \nIf you choose ‘book + entry’ your copies of the book will be available to collect on the evening. If you would like to collect it earlier\, or arrange for delivery\, please contact us (postage is £2.95). Telephone 020 7837 4473 or email shop@housmans.com. \nDoors Open at 6:45pm\, Event Starts 7:00. \nShare this: \n Share on X (Opens in new window) \n X Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) \n Facebook Share on Insta (Opens in new window) \n Insta \n Like this:Like Loading… URL:https://www.eroding.org.uk/event/book-launch-international-freak-robin-farquharson-and-the-dream-of-psychedelic-revolt/ LOCATION:Housmans\, 5 Caledonian Road King’s Cross\, N1 9DX CATEGORIES:Bookshops/Libraries,Presentations END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260818T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260818T203000 DTSTAMP:20260622T213110 CREATED:20260605T023004Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260622T150732Z UID:6663-1787079600-1787085000@www.eroding.org.uk SUMMARY:'FLAMBOYANCE' WITH JACK PARLETT IN CONVERSATION WITH PETER SCALPELLO DESCRIPTION:JACK PARLETT AND CELEBRATED POET PETER SCALPELLO DISCUSS ‘FLAMBOYANCE’ AND HOW IT IGNITES EVERY ASPECT OF OUR LIVES\, FROM ART AND ENTERTAINMENT TO RITUAL AND PROTEST. \nFlamboyance is Jack Parlett’s follow up to his acclaimed Fire Island (A Housmans bestseller of 2022). This new book has all the qualities one has come to expect of Jack’s work; big hearted and erudite in equal measure. \nFlamboyance ignites every aspect of our lives\, from art and entertainment to ritual and protest. The word conjures exuberance and unashamed passion; in thought\, expression and dress. Yet historically the term ‘flamboyant’ has been reserved for the over-the-top and the outré\, invoked at times as a pejorative innuendo or worse. \nIn his fascinating new book\, Jack Parlett argues for its value as an empowering and creative force\, illuminating the ways in which flamboyance is a fundamental aspect of human conduct that both marks and transcends difference. \nTaking in an eclectic array of examples\, from Gothic architecture to the orange flowers of Dungeness\, and populated by figures such as Oscar Wilde\, James Baldwin\, Elton John\, Amy Winehouse\, Lil Nas X and Chappell Roan\, this is a book about flamboyant art and the art of flamboyance. And having both aspired to it and rejected it\, Jack recounts his personal relationship to flamboyance while also finding new meanings of the word\, exploring its surprises and contradictions\, and reconnecting with its radical power. \nOUR SPEAKERS: \nJack Parlettis the author of three books: The Poetics of Cruising: Queer Visual Culture from Whitman to Grindr (a monograph with University of Minnesota Press)\, Same Blue\, Different You (a poetry pamphlet with Broken Sleep Books)\, and Fire Island: A Queer History (Granta)\, which was named one of the Best Books of 2022 by the New Yorker and shortlisted for the Polari Book Prize 2023. His writing has appeared in the New Yorker\, Document Journal\, BBC Culture\, Boston Review\, Literary Hub and Poetry London. \nPeter Scalpello is a writer and psychotherapist from Glasgow\, based in London. Their second book\, Mirrorstage\, was published this year with Cipher Press. \nAs always\, tickets are priced on a sliding scale. If you are unable to pay for a ticket please do not hesitate to contact us at shop@housmans.com\, and a free ticket will be made available. \nIf you choose ‘book + entry’ your copies of the book will be available to collect on the evening. If you would like to collect it earlier\, or arrange for delivery\, please contact us (postage is £2.95). Telephone 020 7837 4473 or email shop@housmans.com. \nDoors Open at 6:45pm\, Event Starts 7:00. \nShare this: \n Share on X (Opens in new window) \n X Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) \n Facebook Share on Insta (Opens in new window) \n Insta \n Like this:Like Loading… URL:https://www.eroding.org.uk/event/flamboyance-with-jack-parlett-in-conversation-with-peter-scalpello/ LOCATION:Housmans\, 5 Caledonian Road King’s Cross\, N1 9DX CATEGORIES:Presentations END:VEVENT BEGIN:VEVENT DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260904T190000 DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260904T203000 DTSTAMP:20260622T213110 CREATED:20260507T022926Z LAST-MODIFIED:20260622T150737Z UID:6256-1788548400-1788553800@www.eroding.org.uk SUMMARY:Book Launch: Liquid Reflections with Liliane Lijn DESCRIPTION:We are profoundly honored to be hosting the paperback launch for a memoir by one the world’s greatest living artists\, the sculptor Liliane Lijn\, who will be joined in conversation by leading art writer Jennifer Higgie. Liliane Lijn is an artist who needs little introduction. Her stirring\, often ostentatious and always poetic works are dotted throughout the British urban landscape\, and overseas. Regular visitors to Housmans will have no doubt seen her recent piece Temenos just up the road from us\, near Granary Square. \nWe will host Liliane May 2nd to launch the paperback edition of her brilliant bildungsroman Liquid Reflections. The book begins in 1958 with the talented and fearless Liliane Lijn leaving her family home and moving to Paris alone to become an artist. Once there\, she found an art world filled with the wild energy of creative revolution – peopled and controlled almost entirely by men. In the years that followed\, Lijn built a life for herself in the city. She embraced the hectic bohemian spirit of the Left Bank. She befriended artists\, painters\, poets\, gallerists and revolutionaries\, as the late Surrealists gave way to a burgeoning Pop Art movement. She had disastrous love affairs with difficult men. She experimented boldly\, creating ground-breaking sculptures with light\, text and movement. And as her profile steadily grew\, she was told again and again that there are no great women artists: ‘There never have been.’ \nLiquid Reflections is her memoir of these years of experiment and adventure – years when Lijn was constantly in motion\, from Paris to New York to Venice to Athens\, from paper and canvas to wax and Perspex to oil and water. In love\, she became pregnant but rebelled against the idea that a woman could not be both a great artist and a mother. And she sought – and found – radical pleasure in the act of creative expression and in the living\, sensuous world around her. \nBased on personal diaries from the time\, this is a riveting and revelatory account of a singular coming of age: a glittering portrait of the artist as a young woman. \n‘I wrote LIQUID REFLECTIONS because I wanted to take my readers on the journey I made to become an artist. It’s the story of an idealistic\, inspired young woman who refuses to accept the prejudices of her time. Becoming an artist was also a search for my own identity…’— Liliane Lijn \nLiliane will be conversation with the art writer Jennifer Higgie\, author of numerous books\, her most recent being The Other Side: A Journey into Women\, Art and the Spirit World\, the first major work of art history to focus on women artists and their engagement with the spirit world. \nThis is going to be an extremely special event and we are delighted to be hosting it. Please do book a ticket in advance to avoid disappointment on the night. \nLiliane and Jennifer will talk for around 45 minutes to an hour\, followed by an open discussion with the audience. \nAs always\, tickets are priced on a sliding scale. If you are unable to pay for a ticket please do not hesitate to contact us at shop@housmans.com\, and a free ticket will be made available. \nIf you choose ‘book + entry’ your copies of the book will be available to collect on the evening. If you would like to collect it earlier\, or arrange for delivery\, please contact us (postage is £2.95). Telephone 020 7837 4473 or email shop@housmans.com. \nDoors Open at 6:45pm\, Event Starts 7:00. \nShare this: \n Share on X (Opens in new window) \n X Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) \n Facebook Share on Insta (Opens in new window) \n Insta \n Like this:Like Loading… URL:https://www.eroding.org.uk/event/book-launch-liquid-reflections-with-liliane-lijn-2/ LOCATION:Housmans\, 5 Caledonian Road King’s Cross\, N1 9DX CATEGORIES:Presentations END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR