In September 2017, Spittoon worked together with The Bookworm to successfully complete a 3 city literary tour that visited the 3 Bookworm venues in China and locations in Shanghai. We set off to visit Beijing, Chengdu and Suzhou / Shanghai. Read on to find out how it all played out! 

September 23rd - 24th

Written by Spittoon Founder, Matthew Byrne

It felt like the entire area around the Bookworm in Sanlitun had a Spittoony buzz about it during the first day of the Beijing tour leg. During the day Simon and I zoomed off briefly on his bike to meet Samantha Toh, a Singaporean poet, who was collaborating for Spittoon's Spit-Tunes project with the Norwegian Jazz trio, Nypal Trio. We brought them together and left them practicing at a studio in Dongzhimen for their special collaborative piece later that evening.

Samantha Toh reads her poetry

These and other scenarios really contributed to a zany, creative buzz throughout the day as the Spittoon Literary Tour got started at its first destination: Bookworm Beijing. The first event was a poetry reading featuring some of Beijing's brightest talent - the sunlight shone hazily through the windows on a contemplative crowd, ushering in a calm and welcoming first event and a lovely start to the day.

This was followed by a panel moderated by Loreli's Kerryn Leitch titled: 'The Poetic Magic of Mixing Media' featuring panelists, Krish Raghav, Liu Qilin (Jady),  Nayyir Shareef and Kassy Lee - the conversation about the caustically effusive Beijing and Shanghai literary and artistic scenes fizzed and bubbled away into lunch time.

During the afternoon the Poetry In Translation event provided an interesting and cumulative look into some of the excellent Chinese writers published in the Spittoon Literary Magazine with some new voices, moderated by Chen Bo. This was followed by one of Spittoon's most exciting and compelling events, Spit-Tunes - featuring four musician / poet partnerships that had made special collaboration songs especially for the event. Spittoon artists, writers and audience members alike danced the night away during the rooftop after-party, organized by Dorothy Mae Ajayi.

Xu Yue and Anthony Tao

 Read at the Poetry In Translation event

Ambient artist Wen Liang and

Poet, Lethokuhle Msimang

The next day featured a medley of different literary events, with the interactive 'Books of Beijing' event, organized by Sven Romberg, Cas Sutherland and Vanessa Meng (where people became interactive 'books') and an engaging Spittoon Fiction showcase, hosted and organized by former Spittoon Fiction Host, Matias Ruiz-Tagle.

Altogether the events were a rousing success and a great start to the tour!

Free flow drinks and a great DJ set for 

Spittoon artists and audience members alike!

October 14th and 15th

Written by Spittoon Chengdu Organizer and Host, Annie Leonard

For me, the best thing about the Tour was that it was actually a tour: four writers from Beijing, including Spittoon’s founder, Matthew Byrne, turned up on my doorstep that weekend, ready to perform and chill in our most relaxing city of Chengdu.

Matt and I opened the festival with some introductory remarks about the birth and growth of Spittoon over the past two years and a kickass video by Matias Ruiz-Tagle (Former Spittoon Fiction Host) showcasing some of Spittoon Beijing’s events and hot lines of poetry. Then the four Beijing-based writers—Matthew, Rowena C., Artur Witkowski and Deva Eveland—and I shared our work to a small but enthusiastic audience.

Organizer Annie Leonard

Things began to pick up in the evening, starting with a stellar showcase of poetry. Rowena and Artur joined a solid line-up of Chengdu-based writers and the room was packed. We then moved into the Poetry in Translation section of the evening, featuring Jacob Wanuch’s poetry translated from English into Chinese and recited by Zhenming Tian, Zheng Yi’s poetry translated from Chinese into English by Wenwen and recited by yours truly, Aleks Paulska reciting poetry written in Spanish and translated into English by herself, and Dimitry Ustinov sharing a poem written in Russian and translated into English by himself. 

Artur Witkowski reads his poetry

For Spit-Tunes, the five featured acts were diverse, each fresh and unique in its own way. First was Luis Valadez, accompanied by Weiting and Lele on the guzheng and pipa respectively. The second act was my beloved Wenwen (strong words, I know, but I’m such a fan!), accompanied by Tina Goodman on the acoustic guitar.

Luis Valadez's Spit-Tunes performance

Tina remained on stage to accompany Rosemary for two poems: Young Maidens of Chengdu and Mixed Messages. Next was Cecil Lee accompanying himself on the electric guitar for a haunting recitation.

To bring the performance to a close were Penney and Shuazhijie with something completely different: beatboxing and poetry. When the young TV & film acting student Shuazhijie confessed later that it had been his first public beatboxing performance I was astounded. His beats were the perfect fit for Penney’s three poems about trains and tempo.

After that, the evening took care of itself. The Bookworm burbled with conversation, the wine flowed… And Day One of the Spittoon Literary Tour, Chengdu, drew to a close.

The Crowd enjoys Chengdu Spittoon's 

Spit-Tunes event

November 18th

Written by Spittoon Literary Magazine

Editor-In-Chief, Simon Shieh

Shanghai is pleasantly warm in November and has a huge appetite for the kind of literary events that Spittoon specializes in. With help from Shanghai Literary Review, Literary Shanghai, and NYU Shanghai, we organized a day of fun, interactive literary events.

Audience from Spittoon Shanghai's poetry reading

We started the day off with a translation masterclass led by the prolific poet and translator, Shelly Bryant, and NYU professor, David Perry. In the masterclass, participants had a chance to translate work themselves, compare it with David and Shelly's translations, and discuss the challenges both participants and professional translators face.

Writers enjoy David Perry's and Shelly Bryant's Translation Workshop

Right after that we moved on to My Place Ruin Bar for the Poetry in Shanghai reading, and heard from some wonderful Shanghai area writers like 肖水, Alice Pettway, Shelly Bryant, and David Perry.

The last event, Battle of the Bards, saw fierce competition between teams engaging in different forms of literary battle. From performative recitations to collaborative writing, this was a battle for the ages.

We'd like to thank all of the people that contributed to or attended any of these events - we cant wait to do it all over again!

About Spittoon

Spittoon is a platform that supports and sustains literary and artistic collaborations between the Chinese and the World. It organizes poetry and fiction reading nights, workshops, a music-poetry collaboration called Spit-Tunes, and the Spittoon Literary Magazine.