#104: ‘Fights’ by Steven J. Fowler

This 2nd edition of Steven J. Fowler‘s Fights was published in 2015 by Veer Books, and from what I understand is a more slimmed down, and considered, version of the 2011 1st edition (also Veer Books).

I know Steven from when my life existed almost entirely beneath the shadow of poetry. This all seems so long ago now, and at times feels like falsified memories crafted around a photograph of me next to ‘a poet’ while at primary school. The archives, and people who were there and witnessed it first-hand, assure me that I was in fact that man. If it’s of interest you can listen to me in conversation with Steven as part of my Lunar Poetry Podcasts series (back in 2019).

The book:

Fights is a series of poetic cycles written about a number of boxers whose careers and actions dominated the sport when the 1st edition was written, in 2011; but who were already on the slide – or dead – by the time the revised edition went to print. Typically, Fowler approaches this book in as expansive and experimental a fashion as is practically conceivable when working with a small independent press. (And happily there are still many trying to work creatively within these restrictions.)

By utilising varying approaches to written text and typographical layouts in order to tackle a single subject, Fowler mirrors the multiple techniques used by the boxers featured in the book toward their collective, singular aim: to hurt, and not get hurt (though, of course, we are forced to look those who might want to be hurt dead in the eye, throughout).

In many ways Fowler would have sat naturally among the artistic Avant Garde of the early 20th century, though particularly so in choosing boxing as a central theme of exploration. As Bertolt Brecht wished for Theatre to provide the same opportunities for the working-class to come together, Fowler shows us that experimental poetic forms can be used to engage with serious questions about the recording of, and the ethics of, what is sometimes a brutal sport:

How do we define a fight or a career?

Can punch counts tell us anything about a fight, or is the truth somewhere, elusively, between the numbers?

Can we remove all violence from punches if we lay them out on the page as dance steps? – are they more beautiful, and if so, is beauty better?

If a fighter studies her opponents before and during a bout, do their fight records become bibliographies? – reference material for other fighters, and then later historians?

What purpose ritual….. or medicine….. religion?

Fowler’s poetry isn’t always ‘easy’, even for those who are self-confessed fans of the form, but then boxing isn’t always ‘easy’ for the fancy; neither art form necessarily wants to be defined by the wishes or desired comforts of its audience.