Dungeness is an action poem written for four performers. It began as a group of failed lyric poems, a meditation on place and being. After destroying those poems Stephen started to make a list of all the plants, animals and objects he found while wandering around Dungeness, making anagrams out of them in an attempt to transform the landscape. The self. 

I wanted to put the essence of the original lyric poems into stage directions that focussed on the physicality of language and body and incorporate the anagrams into a performance alongside these physical instructions.  I also created a group of six visual scores that are made up of lyric phrases and/or sentences written over each other to create an abstract textual arrangement. 

I knew I wanted to make it into a group performance – the idea being that each performer would represent a different part of the poet’s psychology. Each performer struggles to make their voice heard – to make sense of what's going on – to break through somehow into meaning. But this meaning never quite materialises. It is seaword. It is salt. It is the thrashing of arms and legs in a wild ocean. 

Stephen Emmerson

In one sense Dungeness is a poem about trying and failing to make a poem. But within it is also the struggle to survive – to live – to find life in the creative act. It is a poem of hope. A poem that resists the urge to give up. 

Stephen Emmerson is the author of A Piece, Poetry Wholes, and Family Portraits, all of which are published by If P Then Q. Other works include Invisible Poems (ZimZalla), WHO? (The Literary Pocket Book), and Telegraphic Transcriptions (Stranger Press / Dept Press). Stephen also makes poetry objects such as Pharmacopoetics, Remains, Breath, Rilke Translations, Homeopoetry, and History of the English Working Class.. More information on Stephen and his work can be found here.

Dungeness includes:

• A pamphlet of Instructions and Texts for Dungeness, with a separate sheet of Actions folded and inserted into the back

• A folder with 6 separate visual poem posters

250mm x 184mm 24pp pamphlet with folded sheet insert plus 250mm x 140mm folded card with 6 folded posters / printed on Mohawk Superfine, with Tintoretto cover and Savile Row end papers from Fedrigoni / ISBN 978-1-913749-03-3