Projects: poetry + personal training
Since 2010, I've participated in, collaborated on and created art projects and mixtapes. In 2020, I decided to take time away from the scene and social media. In 2021, with venues still locked down and only my ability to exercise constant, I began legitimising my colloquial knowledge and love of training.
In 2022, my best mate and I collated Proceed Only With Authority, he on illustration and me on words, and have written and edited over 400 health and fitness related posts over on muy Instagram @coachjackmann.
What will we work on together?
my next poetry collection will be audiovisual-first
London-based graphic designer and best mate of mine, Oliver Deans, crafted these gorgeous EP covers for my SUMMER SEQUENCE and SPRING SERIES spoken word sets. And we want to make more together to tap into languages that transcend just the written word. In Spring 2022, we launched P.O.W.A.
BISMA: Level 4 strength & conditioning coach, Level 3 personal trainer & level 2 fitness instructor
I've been weightlifting with consistency for the past five years, and when the British International Sports Medicine Academy (BISMA), based in London, began running CIMSPA-recognised, distance learning PT courses through lockdowns, I decided to buckle down. The course covered:
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Anatomy and physiology (Level 2)
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Knowing how to support clients (Level 2)
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Health and Safety in a fitness environment (Level 2)
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Principles of exercise, health & fitness (Level 2)
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Planning gym instructing sessions (Level 2)
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Instructing gym-based exercise sessions (Level 2)
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Applying the principles of nutrition (Level 3)
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Anatomy and physiology (Level 3)
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Planning personal training sessions (Level 3) and
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Instructing personal training sessions (Level 3).
I completed the course in December 2021, and, in the summer of 2023, I worked on my level 4 qualification in strength and conditioning alongside PT work at PureGym and as an online health and fitness coach.
Writing Squad:
Portraits of the Underbanks
On the hottest weekend in June 2019, six Writing Squad writers converged on the Underbanks of Stockport. This once bustling part of town was a major through road in the Northwest and dates back, some say, to the Roman era. We spoke to shopowners to get their take on the street's checkered history and its bristling potential. And it feels like Stockport is in transition, from a Greater Manchester satellite with a chip on its shoulder into something entirely its own.
rap, singing and spoken word over a remixed beat: 'an interaction'
One brief - intense and immediate connection - one narrative from three angles, 'an interaction' (as we provisionally called it before tweaking it a little bit more) was sampled, written, recorded and mixed in less than 8 hours. I've not worked on anything this bouncy before and would love to keep it going, not least with Hansel and Charlie. Big shout to Sam Gellaitry whose beat fuelled this track and our excitement.
a spoken word demo single:
e.e. cummings' 9. featuring a drum machine
As an homage to my favourite season, Spring, and the equinox and the clocks going forward, I've recorded a demo of e.e. cummings' poem 9. The track features my vocals, his words, a Korg Volca Beats drum pattern and a little bit of German to boot. Let me know what you think of it and if you'd like to re-work it or even work with me further on it.
BLOCK poetry:
a spoken word audiobook
I've had lots of positive and helpful feedback about my first poetry collection, BLOCK. To me, it's all about dialogue with the audience whether through writing or performing. Your support let me take time away from the 9-5 to learn the basics of recording and publishing from those who know best. The BLOCK audiobook builds on help from all of you. Keep letting me know what you think and feel - it's great working with you!
Bezirk Berlin:
a travel writing blog
As part of a travel writing course, I moved to Berlin for the Summer of 2014. There, I wrote every day and attended German classes every other morning. As a 10-person team, we put together two travel-blogs in the first two months and in August, my last month, I went out on my own to write an article a day in and for each of Berlin's 12 boroughs. Where borough translates as Bezirk, the result was Bezirk Berlin, a mad galavant around a city I'd come to love, all fuelled by intrigue, a passion for gonzo journalism and an absolutely appaling diet. "12 Places, 12 Boroughs, 12 Days: Berserk in Berlin".
live poetry and spoken word covers performed with session musicians
Following the SPRING SERIES, this SUMMER SEQUENCE of live poetry and spoken word covers with session band backing marked a half year since the start of my London journey. I paid homage to everyday love poetry with renditions of John Cooper Clarke's 'I wanna be yours' and Frank O'Hara's 'Having a coke with you', both of which I learnt last for readings at mates' weddings. 'an interaction', 'and the waitresses seem to have no bums' and 'us in H.D.' are all original pieces, with the last drawing heavily by way of cut-up technique on Hilda Doolittle's Selected Poems. And then I went in search of some autumnony...
spoken word x drum machine cover:
Evidently chickentown
There are so many...covers of other musicians online, but I can't sing, so I made this instead: a drum machine take on John Cooper Clarke's superlative rapidfire assault on the bloody everyday, 'Evidently Chickentown'. And it annoys me that I have to breathe three times to get through it live...
touchpaperlit:
a continuous collaborative art project
touchpaperlit is a continuous art project for anyone interested in cross-medium, collaborative creativity. face it together is the biggest collaborative art project I’ve been involved with since Dead Beats. We started it in Autumn 2018 and cut and stuck it into this version for March 2019. We took pictures of friends, relatives or partners pulling 3 different, recognisable expressions. Then, with paper and scissors, we mixed partners’ faces to literally see ourselves in each other. In the second stage of the project, we toyed around with the idea of mixed emotions. Read more on our fourth project on touchpaperlit.
Before the face it together flipbook launched, I re-visited our third piece - 90s SINGLES NIGHT - with my drum machine and microphone. You can watch the results in the video or listen to our mixtape on Soundcloud. What do you think of our projects? Let us know on Instagram:@touchpaperlit
The experience of reading:
5-minute talk for Manchester Literature Festival
On the 10th October 2018 - a particularly sunny Wednesday - at Manchester Central Library, in association with Take Ten, a campaign to get people reading for at least 10 minutes a day, The Writing Squad commissioned me to give a five-minute talk on my experience of reading. The passage produced, aimed at year 9 and year 10 schoolchildren participating in the Manchester Literature Festival, utilised a mixture of prose and poetry to relay how my love of reading originated in the moments my dad read to me when I was a kid.
Dead Beats:
a coterie of writers from all over the world
Dead Beats Literary Blog started out as a group of three bored English Literature students looking for more than their course was then giving them. Dead Beats ended - in its initial guise - as a 13,000 person strong writing collective that shared, among its own works, inspiring literary quotes and images typically centred around the aesthetic of the 60s Beat Generation. One day we went so far out, it was hard to know if we could ever come back...
The Beats are dead; long live Dead Beats.
