Russell Square Station: mine the trash (2015)
With words so precise, so honest and void of a need to please, Hill’s ability to pull you to her chest in order to feel her beating heart is the greatest gif any poet can offer – Danniel Oickle
My first spoken-word poetry book, Hoxton Square Circles; starfucking tales of sexless one-night stands (2001) was followed by the heartfelt sombre sequel in 2014/2015, Russell Square Station: mine the trash paired with street art by Juan Carlos Noria.
To self-publish the book, Juan and I reached out to Ottawa and globally, and were rewarded by 100 generous arts patrons’ contributions who supported our Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign. We exceeded the ambitious $5,500 goal for this book about poetry and art, raising $6,233 to finance the project. Thanks to Juan’s connections, the book was designed by Barcelona-based textile designer, Laura Fernandez, aka Spanish street artist and illustrator Olivia. Venus Envy in Ottawa hosted the sold-out book launch on Friday the 13th of February, 2015, with local bookstores and Railbender generously carrying it.
Russell Square Station: mine the trash documents through spoken-word poetry and visual art, a fated reunion with a bombastic Brit from the author’s first book, Hoxton Square Circles: starfucking tales of sexless one-night stands (2001). In feverish expression and raw recollection, Russell Square Station unravels what happens when you [m]use someone trans-Atlantic over the Internet, cross-over to dance with the devil, and live to tell the tale. And, there are a couple of poems about demonic cosmopolitan culture that equally rape. See the story unfold through images from the existing fine- and street-art collection by Juan Carlos Noria (aka dixon), which are paired perfect with the poems, painting the portentous plot about one Woman and her Male Muse. Taking its name from the literary Bloomsbury borough of Camden in Central London UK, and also the tube station that suffered both a bomb attack in 2005 and the author’s final kiss with her Muse, Russell Square Station is a confession of sexual naivety, and how heedless appetence for human connection leads to self-destructive crap, transformative in sort if one mines the trash.
