In Seriously Jack Solloway hopscotches the delicate boundary between comedy and catastrophe, inviting an exploration of the slapstick connection between the poetic persona and the unfortunate man-hole they inevitably stumble through. This pamphlet boldly plays with various poetic forms, from sestinas, mirror writing, and anagrams to dialogue, concrete poetry, and illustrated verses. Some poems bear the weight of their ambitious design, such as a twelve-line sonnet missing its couplet in 'Queen Mab', or the flighty ballad in 'Fible-fable', which playfully leads readers astray into nonsense. Throughout, Solloway's poems reside in intriguing grey areas, aiming to engage readers and implicate them in various ways, juggling elements of his own life experiences while maintaining the sense of irony and hypocrisy they entail. Seriously will seriously captivate you with its imaginative interplay of comedy and misfortune as Solloway pushes the boundaries of poetic expression with both daring experimentation and personal introspection.
On her shelves Penelope Shuttle found several Old English dictionaries belonging to her late husband Peter Redgrove, which she studied until their strange and mysterious vocabulary found its way into a sequence of poetry. Here Shuttle's writing of animals, based upon a reading of a medieval mystery play about Noah and The Deluge, is connected and intertwined with current environmental concerns. The magic and richness of biblical stories is present as mythology rather than theology, and Noah sees Penelope Shuttle utilise the title character as a critique of patriarchal attitudes, particularly in regard to Emzara, Noah's wife. This is a remarkable work that brings the past into the present, and reimagines a better future.
In Open Your Mouth Jasmine Gray mixes the elegance of Joan Didion with the inventive spirit of Anne Carson. Gray moves with fluidity and style around her chosen subjects: Amy Winehouse, the Catholic Church, feminism, creeps. Open Your Mouth is a pamphlet full of vivid, intense and sensuous poetry, every phrase sparkles with the gleam of a newly minted coin. Jasmine Gray is a brilliant young writer, who wishes to be "delighted by what enters [her] mouth, and what leaves it."
In his first book in over a decade, Instead of an Alibi proves that Geoff Hattersley has lost none of the sharp wit and incisiveness that has defined his brilliant and unique poems to date. Instead of an Alibi is a sharp and vital poetics of the lives of working-class Britain in a post-industrial, post-capitalist landscape.
Natalie Sorrell Charlesworth's Fleet Salvage is an irresistible debut pamphlet immersed in history, her poems explore ancient invasions, the first complete census, the lions kept in the Tower of London and other fascinating historical moments. Her interest in genealogy shines through as she delves into the chasm between the human world and the animal kingdom. Fleet Salvage is a pamphlet of incredible dexterity, accomplishment and great heart.
Child is a luminous, nostalgic and compelling collection of poetry translated from the Hebrew of Amir Or into English by Seth Michelson. These are lyrical, contemplative poems that pick at the mythical surfaces lurking under the sandpit and dream of the days when: "the world was made of love; the light lit up the darkness."
Energy Crisis explores a personal health crisis within an examination of the energy production issues affecting North Wales and Anglesey. It is set over the space of a single summer, and framed by an attempt to try rock climbing. Within this structure, Philippa Holloway deftly address Solar Power, Wind Power, Tidal Power, Nuclear Power, and Fossil Fuels by weaving them into a deeply personal narrative of her own diagnosis with an illness that depletes her energy.
Lives of British Shrews is an formally innovative poem designed to reflect the daily activity cycles of the three species of British shrew - Common, Pygmy and Water. Anchored in soricine ecology, the poem nevertheless roams wildly, with its exploration of the fierce and implacable eros of shrews providing portals into other themes and content, including human nature, autobiography, capitalism, the Anthropocene and war.
Jack Bennett's Lunette is an unsettling and mysterious series ekphrastic prose-poems which feature themes of displacement, flux and purgatory. The poems were written as the lockdown eased and the world returned to normal. Bennet's influences are drawn mostly from the surrealist tradition, Mallarmé, Rimbaud and Roy Fisher are all prominent, with a hint of something intangible floating alongside the moonlight, reeds and jellyfish.
In The Fireman's Daughter Jonathan Kinsman uses his theological background to present a bruised, searing, and occasionally claustrophobic examination of the human condition. Kinsman's poems are gripping, restless, and feel like there is always something at stake. Comfortable in myriad forms, terminally horny, with admirable self-confidence and bravado Kinsman is a poet "frightened of who we are in winter...frightened of what we will burn".
Scansion of the Dark is Anthony Rudolf's translation of Michele Finck's sequence Balbuciendo, showcasing both the original French and the translated English. The poems are sombre and uncompromising, dwelling in permanent crisis, drawing inspiration from suffering and loss while yearning for transcendence. Finck, through Rudolf's exquisite translations, weighs up an answer to Rilke's pertinent question from Letters to a Young Poet: "Would you die if you were forbidden to write?"
French Leave follows RE:VERB in which Cliff Forshaw recreated Rimbaud's terrestrial adventures from the Hooligan Poet and Seer in bohemian Paris, through the years as a tough merchant and gun-runner in Africa, to his death aged thirty-seven in a Marseilles hospital. This new collection plays variations on the themes and forms of French verse from mid-nineteenth century Gautier and Gérard de Nerval, through Baudelaire and Rimbaud, to Valery and Apollinaire on the eve of the First World War. Among the well-known figures, Forshaw invents further fin-de-siècle personae that might have existed, and possibly even did.
Julia Rose Lewis' spellbinding and eccentric pamphlet, Nearly Identical Sharks is an intriguing read from a poet born under a 'strawberry ice cream moon'. These thought-provoking poems are full of weird wit and fascinating imagery, which is predominately focused on the animal kingdom. Subtly romantic, Lewis marks out a liminal territory where "she eats peppermints like a nightmare eats salt licks". A delightful pamphlet rich in technical skill and linguistic charm.
In Backlogues Joseph Minden explores how the act of remembering recreates spaces of oppression and how complicity in ancient power structures sustains modern day violence. Minden writes about the detritus of British history, from the Birkenhead Iron Works to the Bay of Biscay to Cape Town and the Straits of Malacca, all the time weaving a rich tapestry of troubling repetition alongside lenitive melodies and epicurean imagery.
Health Hireth highlights the fleeting nature of both health and identity, as well as the challenges faced by those who exist on the edges of the healthcare system. Taran Spalding-Jenkin's poetry moves between past and present medical experiences as if existing between here and an Otherworld. Chronic illness, Cornish culture, gender, sexuality, and mental health are all woven throughout the evocative and poignant verse of Health Hireth.
The Commerce Between Tongues explores adrija ghosh's multilingualism, which bears the collection's exploration of loneliness, grief, trauma, desire, and their impact upon one's sense of self. This collection explores the idea of mobility and how the self transports itself via memory and finds itself in constant motion, blurring its own spatio-temporal existence. This stunning collection showcases a lyric 'i' that travels between Scotland, London, Norwich, Delhi, and Calcutta.
In his debut collection a fondness for the colour green Charlie Baylis writes with the uninhibited brio of a drunken text to one's ex. Ophelia face down in oceans of milk, suitcases full of whipped cream, Sinatra sleeping inside a spoon and other dreamlike images mesmerise the reader like confetti falling onto a bonfire. Brimming with references to pop culture, this is a playful yet profound, electrifying debut collection from an essential poet.
Who does not envy with us is against us is a collection of essays on working-classness that demonstrates Maria Fusco's exceptional talent for weaving together the analytical and the poetic to create an affecting and profound work. With expressive prose, Fusco deftly captures the experiences of the global working class, illuminating emotions that unite them across borders and lines. This is a tribute to the resilience and tenacity of working-class communities, and an invitation to readers to join in a deeper understanding of their struggles and triumphs. Through her masterful storytelling, Fusco utilises the power of language to elevate the voices of those who have long been silenced, creating a symphony of words that will echo long after the final page.
Bloofer by Cathleen Allyn Conway is an intoxicating mix of the playful macabre and elements of dark academia. Conway's illicit obsessions creep through like the full moon on a cloudy night: Bram Stoker, Plath in thrall to the occult, dark alleyways and haunted libraries. Bloofer hides "razorblades between the pages" that give a keen edge to this thrilling and mischievous collection of poems that disarm you with humour before they bite you.
Wendy Allen's erotically charged pamphlet Plastic Tubed Little Bird, finds the speaker of her poems "wearing lipstick /the exact colour of my cervix" and "masturbating whilst reading Anaïs Nin". Through a tumble of poetic forms, Allen writes about orgasm, female sexual liberation and Barbara Hepworth. Her poems are tinged with vulnerability and honesty, singing of a body turned on, plugged in, electric.
A troubled programmer disappears into their own hardware, bad mobile signal dictates the rhythm of a breakup, history's greatest corporate mascot lays waste to the metropolis... Haptics examines our complex relationship with technology, the ways in which it shapes and transmits our lives, and the worlds we inhabit which are dreamed for us by the electrical cycles of silicon microprocessors. Fox's poems reveal the wonder and horror of our tech muddled lives.
Jill Abram's Forgetting my Father is a poignant portrait of family life and a daughter's bond with her ailing father. Abram's poetry is warm and gentle, keeping a space for the moment: "I remember Dad when he still remembered me". Abram writes of love, hope and loss in tender and neatly observed poems, which, in the words of Dylan Thomas: 'rage against the dying of the light'.
Seasons of Love around the Rising Sun by Tamiko Dooley is a sweetly-observed portrait of childhood and vulnerable moments shuffled into four six-poem decks of spring, summer, autumn and winter. Dooley writes of pickled plums tucked under tatami straw floors, a kokeshi doll gifted by her uncle, her grandmother sealing envelopes with leftover rice and other details that lead down a path that winds through her most tender memories. A luscious, poignant selection of poems.
Dastram / Delirium samples the soaring verse of one of Scotland's pivotal poetic talents, Alasdair Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair. Formal innovation, political protest, revelry in nature, and erotic praise poetry are all contained here, the first full-length collection of Alasdair to appear in English in over a century. An Enlightenment mind and contemporary of Pope, Hume and Burke, his poetry should have been the indigenous genius Samuel Johnson and James Boswell sought out in their now-infamous literary tour through the Highlands and Islands. Though much-celebrated within his native Gaelic language, Alasdair's poetry is as much neglected outside of Gaelic. But now, in novel literary translations by Taylor Strickland, readers can re-visit his oeuvre and restore his name to the wider literary conscience.
In Your Body is a House Stripped Charley Barnes delivers a poignant and raw narrative of battling with an eating disorder. Written in the second person, this novella takes readers on a journey through a precise and honest depiction of the toll an eating disorder takes on both the mind and the body, shedding light on a subject that is too often left in the dark. Your Body is a House Stripped is a brave and powerful work that will resonate with readers who have struggled with similar issues, and provide insight for those who seek to understand.
Patrick Davidson Roberts presents a world of illusion in The Trick, a book of masterful deception and creation. Starting from the mysterious act of covering something in smoke to hide or cleanse it, the title poem sets the tone for a collection filled with spells, trails, and twists. Whether exploring the power dynamics behind trickery, devising new escapes and personae, or exploring the accusations of misrepresentation or concealment levelled at both genderqueer and bisexual individuals, The Trick is a thought-provoking and captivating read.
Let us (or the invocation of smoke) by Shehzar Doja is a mysterious and ethereal pamphlet. The words patter inexplicably onto the page like a tiger dreaming of snow. Through these meditative poems Doja shows a deep engagement with craft, realizing "in that primordial amniotic /we never were / when we were." His masterful wordplay curls like smoke rising from an extinguished candle.
In The Birds, The Rabbits, The Trees, Briony Collins deconstructs a year of grief and an abusive relationship through her evocative poetry. Pink daisy chains and letters to mum clash with broken thumbs and Bundy black eyes as Collins expertly weaves between the light and dark of a life of loss. Her cutting yet delicate language leads the reader on a journey through pain to empowerment.
For four centuries Anne Shakespeare, née Hathaway, has been in her famous husband's shadow. It's high time she had a book of her own.This bold and ground-breaking volume places her centre-stage and encourages us to re-imagine Anne in her own right, and afresh for our own times. Anne-thology: Poems Re-Presenting Anne Shakespeare brings together sixty-seven newly-commissioned poems, one for each year of Anne's life. Here, too, are ten poems of the past. The poetic voices that sing from this book are excitingly diverse in their age and background. Together they present a multi-faceted portrait of Anne's identity and dreams.Brave, moving, liberating, and witty, Anne-thology brings together Anne's past and present and is a bold beacon, illuminating the enduring legacy of this remarkable woman for future generations.Including poems from: John Agard, Vasiliki Albedo, Andre Bagoo, Robert Bal, Liam Bates, Sally Bayley, Charlie Baylis, Mathilde Blind, Jane Burn, Wendy Cope, Hannah Copley, Lesley Curwen, Rishi Dastidar, Olga Dermott-Bond, Imtiaz Dharker, Charles Dibdin, Carol Ann Duffy, Ella Duffy, Taylor Edmonds, Paul Edmondson, Barbara Everett, Ewan Fernie, Tommy Oliver Sam Flynn, Paul Francis, Wendy Freeman, Jo Gatford, Kathy Gee, Neal Hall, Susanna Shakespeare Hall, Judith Shakespeare Quiney, John Harris, Justina Hart, Lucy Holme, Maisie Ireland, William Ireland, Luke Kennard, Aaron Kent, Chris Laoutaris, Fiona Larkin, Nina Lewis, Len Lukowski, Anna Catherine Markham, Louise Mather, Andrea Mbarushimana, Fokkina McDonnell, Jennifer McLean, Andrew McMillan, Stuart McPherson, Jessica Mehta, Jenny Mitchell, Constance Naden, Grace Nichols, Richard O'Brien, Yewande Okuleye, Emilia Olivia, Caleb Parkin, Roger Pringle, Emma Purshouse, Yousif M. Qasmiyeh, Sam Quill, Dean Rhetoric, Rochelle Roberts, Amber Rollinson, Rachel Sambrooks, George Sandifer-Smith, Hal Algernon Sandle-Keynes, Anna Saunders, Katherine Scheil, William Shakespeare, Genevieve Anne Marragold Stead, Julie Stevens, Taylor Strickland, Elizabeth Sylvia, Kostya Tsolakis, Carina Vallera-Satchwell, U. G. Világos, Cat Weatherill, Rowan Williams, and Ay¿egül Y¿ld¿r¿m
Jetzt zum Newsletter anmelden und tolle Angebote und Anregungen für Ihre nächste Lektüre erhalten.
Mit Ihrer Newsletter-Anmeldung erklären Sie sich mit unseren Datenschutzbestimmungen einverstanden.
