Hieratic Monkey: SJ Fowler’s Performance at the BSB April Launch

Abstract

In the following review, we will consider how Fowler faces birth, evolution, grief, literature, religion, and reflects these experiences back to the audience.  We suggest that he is giving form to the space between his face and the audiences’ faces; he is revealing a series of vases. This is based in the ambiguous figure Rubin’s vase-face, which is an important part of gestalt psychology. Fowler brings the religious and zoological meanings of the word primate face to face in his performance. He identifies as a primate to insist that the great apes are a worthy subject for poetry; he is preaching to the audience seated in church pews. Fowler introduces the evolutionary theory into St Johns on Bethnal Green through literature. Bob Bright, Ailsa Holland, Chris Kerr aid in his performance by reading selections from his 10th poetry collection, The Great Apes published by Broken Sleep Books 2022. The primate performance itself comes full circle to ask poets who among them is worthy to read as opposed to sit in the audience. This rigid hierarchal thinking is utterly disrupted by the primate figure enacting birth and grief. Poetry about the sixth great extinction cannot let itself become taxidermy; it must be disturbing, exciting, and deeply visceral as Fowler’s performance.