On Thursday 27th August at 1800hrs I presented a live version of Swim Litany in the gallery at 37 Looe Street as part of the Bathing Places exhibition. Following a very short introduction, a group of 10 readers performing as a ‘speech choir’ gave a rehearsed reading of the text in three parts.
Rachael Allain, Paul Beaumont, Mo Bottomley, Benjamin Brake, Elena Brake, Katrina Brown, Charlie Cornforth, Rosanna Irvine, Sam Machell, and Matti Spence
Thanks to Angela Piccini and Sefryn Penrose of 37 Looe Street for hosting us.
Swim Litany is a visual text and spoken word score published as an A3 poster. One side presents a range of information sourced from diary records of my swims from mid-summer 2025 to mid-summer 2026. This data includes references to place, to bodies of water, to those I swam with. On the other side textual material is organised into three areas, each section having a different character, with the potential for performance by one, three, or more voices.
Swimming is something that I do, it is part of my life, and I fit it around other things – weather, work, travel, health. Senses of rhythm, of repetition, of the social activity of swimming are evident in the printed poster and in performance. Interruptions to the rhythm and variations in the text record the impact of the rest of life on my swimming, while the writing acknowledges my appreciation of access to safe water and my physical ability to swim regularly.
For a live event on August 27th, a group of performers will read from the text, their voices mixing, blending, bumping against each other as they navigate the three sections. Rhythm, repetition, overlap and silence will depend on the character of the sections, and the speakers’ responses to the words and to each other.
Performance: 1800hrs (6.00pm) on Thursday 27th August 2026 at 37 Looe Street, Plymouth, PL4 0DQ as part of the Bathing Places exhibition.
I have a visual text / poem included in the World Book Night 2026 exhibition at Bower Ashton Library, UWE Bristol open from Thursday 2nd April to Friday 31st July 2026. The theme or prompt for the submissions was ‘The Mountains are Calling,’ and artists were asked to send works up to A5 in size, that responded to the prompt. We were also asked for texts or works that could be added to a growing bibliography of ‘mountainish’ texts.
My landscape text is on the right in this image from the exhibition installation. (Photo by Marian Kilpatrick) More information can be found here: https://www.bookarts.uwe.ac.uk/wbn2026/
