‘America, behold’ / A year of Bupkes / Return of the reading

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This month, The Bupkes publishes ‘America, behold’ – probably M. E. Grey’s most substantial, timely work since Pages of an Autumn Journal in 2016.

This makes a year of monthly contributions in The Bupkes – spanning menswear, an empty chair, beachfront real estate, home decor, a railway pub, and so on. Or seen another way, data security, the meaning of The New Yorker, Gaza, Ukraine, the far right – and so on.

Meanwhile, this month – and specifically Friday 27 March – sees the return of what was once referred to as The Saturday Night Reading, but last time it took place on a Sunday (and then a pandemic happened), so that name was already defunct. And a few things have happened since then. Let’s just call it a reading. Gabriele Pedrini will graciously return as host, and the evening will include readings by Deborah O’Donoghue and William Noah Glucroft, and of ‘Howl’ by Allan Ginsberg – published 70 years ago this year. It also turns out to be the wonderful Frank O’Hara’s actual 100th birthday – so a glass will certainly be raised in his memory too. For more information, please contact M E Grey via the contact form on this website.

Contributor contributing contributions: poems in The Bupkes

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Work by M. E. Grey is featuring irregularly in satirical zine The Bupkes. ‘Snack (Austrian Airlines)‘ was published in March, and ‘Bad threads‘ was published today. Future publications depend on, among other things, the existence of the future.

The Bupkes launched in October 2024 and is running as a Substack. A subscription offers you “a front-row seat to the confounding nothingness that is the everything of our era.”

‘swan’ appears in Still Dancing, by Habib William Kherbek

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A new poem by M. E. Grey, ‘swan’, appears in the flipbook Still Dancing: Writing about dancing about architecture, infrastructure, access, economics, inter alia, published by TLTRPreß. The book brings together Kherbek’s photographs of a performance by dancer Leah Katz, alongside poems and prose from Sydney Beaumont, Alexis Calvas, Kitty Ray Harper Fedorec, Susan Finlay, M. E. Grey, Mina Khanlarzadeh, and Greg Nissan, with the collective aim of opening ‘new approaches to thinking about dance’ – and advertising, public transport, social media…

From the work of Kitty Ray Harper Fedorec:

What if we’re not always our best? I mean – we’re not always at our best, are we? What if your best is not my best?
If I take out of my zoetrope all the photos bar the one where all four hooves are off the ground, the horse can no longer run.

From ‘Movement for Beginners’, by Greg Nissan:

you should know
the camera adds
four corners
to your hips

Taxi poems published by Eurolitkrant

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Remember taxis? A regular feature of professional and personal life for many – and then absent from those same lives since early 2020. M. E. Grey has selected a series of poems featuring taxis for publication in Eurolitkrant:

  • taxi driver
  • NY AIRPORT PICKUP SATELLITE RADIO JAZZ
  • Through the bois after nightfall
  • Relation to an abstract shape
  • taxi poem
  • walking poem

Eurolitkrant is an interdisciplinary, European, online literary journal recently launched by Ali Bader.

INDOCTRINATION: William Kherbek reads in Brussels on 13 March

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Update: This event was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

William Kherbek’s chapbook ’26 Ideologies for aspiring Ideologists’ sold out shortly after its publication by If a Leaf Falls Press in 2018. But on Friday 13 March, you have the opportunity to absorb a doctrine of your own – you will leave knowing one of these poems by heart. How this affects your life thereafter is up to you.

Kherbek is an artist, novelist, poet and critic based between London and Berlin – a little like Brussels itself. His most recent novel, Ultralife, was published by Arcadia Missa in 2019; you can find more information on his activities at www.kherbekistan.com.

The evening will also feature other readers, to be announced. It will take place at KANO at 8pm.

This event continues M. E. Grey’s collaboration in organising readings that feature visiting and local writers with the support of KANO.

Yong Shu Hoong reading in Brussels, 1 March

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Poet and two-times Singapore Literary Prize winner Yong Shu Hoong will read at an event at KANO at 4pm on Sunday 1 March.

Shu Hoong will read a selection of work from his extensive catalogue (six full collections), and provide insights into Singapore’s unique literary scene.

Joining Yong Shu Hoong to read will be Brussels-based poet Loretta Stanley. Originally from Ireland, Loretta and Shu Hoong’s work build on two very different forms of island experiences.

This reading is organised by M. E. Grey, and builds on the series of private readings he has been organising in Brussels since 2018. He is pleased to take this format public with the support of KANO.

For more information, please contact M E Grey via the contact form on this website.

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New work in The Circle 19, anthology launch and reading

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Three poems from M. E. Grey will feature in The Circle 19: A Brussels Anthology: ‘flashbulb handshake’, ‘impact pathway metric’, and ‘scenario’.

The Circle 2019 is the new anthology from the Brussels Writers’ Circle, edited by Cynthia Huijgens and featuring twenty seven writers from fourteen countries.

The anthology launch takes place at Brussels Waterstones on Tuesday 26th November from 17:30 until 19:00.

M. E. Grey will be reading at a second event at Muntpunt Grand Café on Saturday 30th November, from 19:00 until 21:00, featuring readings and discussions with Huijens and contributing authors.

The anthology is available to purchase from Brussels Waterstones, Amazon and elsewhere.