Blackbox Manifold 19

The 19th issue of Blackbox Manifold is out now, and features poetry from Tim Allen, John Balaban, Felix Bazalgette, Daragh Breen, Ian Cartland, Jonathan Catherall, Claire Crowther, Charlotte Eichler, Adam Flint, Angela Gardner, Daniel Y Harris, Sarah Hayden, Allen C Jones, Eric Langley, Ann Lauterbach, Drew Milne, Duncan Montgomery, Michael O'Neill, Nisha Ramayya, Mark Russell, Ian Seed, Helen Tookey, and Howard Wright, plus a review by Adam Piette of collections by Rachel Blau DePlessis, Drew Milne and Iain Britton.

Blackbox Manifold 17

The winter issue (No.17) of Blackbox Manifold is out now, with work by Linda Anderson, Tom Betteridge, Adam Burbage, Stephen Burt, James Byrne, Sophie Collins, Joey Connolly, Adam Flint, Jane Goldman, Thomas Kelly, Chris Kerr, Eric Langley, Dorothy Lehane, Tan Lin, Jaki McCarrick, Gail McConnell, Joseph Minden, Ian Patterson, Robert Sheppard, Ronnie Sirmans, Oliver Southall, Matthew Sweeney, Charles Tarlton, Ken Taylor, Jonty Tiplady and Samuel Tongue.

John Tamplin interviews Keston Sutherland, Peter Larkin reviews Peter Riley, Adam Piette reviews Eliot, Denise Riley and Charlotte Newman, and there are essays on JH Prynne.

Blackbox Manifold 16 out now!

Issue 16 of Blackbox Manifold is out now, with work by Matthew Carbery, Imogen Cassels, Adam Hampton, Lewis Haubus, Tom Jenks, Kent MacCarter, Amy McCauley, James Midgley, Peter Mishler, Simon Perchik, Stuart Pickford, Sam Riviere, Iain Rowley, Ian Seed, Afshan Shafi, Rachel Sills, Dale Smith, David Spittle, Catherine Vidler, Corey Wakeling and John Welch.

There are a new series of essays on the sequence and seriality by Dorothy Alexander, James Capozzi, Alan Golding, Astrid Lorange, Simon Smith and Anne Stillman, and there are also pieces by Ed Luker on JH Prynne, Joe Luna on Douglas Oliver, and Adam Piette on RF Langley.

Blackbox Manifold 13

The new issue of Blackbox Manifold has gone live, featuring work from Claire Crowther, Allen Fisher and Hannah Silva, among others. Enjoy, then have a look back through the previous issues for a fine selection of poetry.

Black Box Manifold 12

The Summer 2014 edition of Black Box Manifold is out now - I've enjoyed the poems by Peter Hughes, Kelvin Corcoran and Martin Malone so far, but there are plenty of other names worth investigating, plus a review of the anthology Dear World And Everyone In It. Enjoy!

Blackbox Manifold 10

The latest issue of Blackbox Manifold has gone live - it includes work by Billy Cancel, Rick Crilly, Josh Ekroy, Michael Farrell, Joanna Grigg, Bernard Henrie, Joan Harvey, David Herd, Beau Hopkins, Drew Milne & John Kinsella (together), Peter Larkin, Robert Mueller, Sandeep Parmar, Peter Riley, Jennifer Scappettone, Kerrin P Sharpe, Nathan Thompson, Corey Wakeling, Duncan White and Rachel Zolf, plus an essay by Sam Ladkin on Frank O'Hara, and a review of John Matthias (a poet I've been reading a lot of lately) by Adam Piette.

As ever, it's well worth trawling through the archive of previous issues for all sorts of new discoveries and hidden gems.

Blackbox Manifold 6

The new issue of Blackbox Manifold has just gone live - there's an Edwin Morgan tribute, reviews, and poetry from the likes of Matthew Sweeney, Ron Silliman and John Welch.

Monday browsing

The new issue of Blackbox Manifold has gone live - you can find new poems from the likes of George Szirtes and Sharon Olds here, and there are some good reviews too.

I've also been enjoying this, over at Ink, Sweat & Tears. Now it's probably fair to say that I'd look kindly on any poem that took a Carry On film as a starting point, but it's also fair to say that Helen Mort has taken it way, way beyond any novelty or curiosity value.

Poetry miscellany

Friday night, I was at Leicester Poetry Society for a reading by Alex Pryce, a young Northern Ireland-born poet who’s currently a student at Leicester University, as well as running PoetCasting in her spare time.

I thoroughly enjoyed it, not really having heard any of it before, and I’m sure she’s a name you’ll hear a lot more of in years to come. She seems to have a very sensible attitude, though – she’s in no hurry to rush a book or even pamphlet out, even though what we heard suggested she has a lot of strong material.

She also played several poets from the PoetCasting site, and as it happened they were all (with the exception of Milner Place), poets I hadn’t yet got round to listening to. I particularly liked the truly extraordinary Hannah Silva, and Richard O’Brien, but it was all just a reminder that it’s a great resource, and a good way of getting a taste of new poets that you can then go off and read.

On Saturday, I was at Coton Manor, in Northamptonshire, for Charles Lauder’s Trees and the Imagination workshop. The fog barely lifted all day, but it didn’t really matter. We discussed a lot of tree poems*, walked in the woods, and wrote for a while ourselves, and I left with the makings of a poem that I’ve been trying to write for a while now. Most importantly of all, the carrot cake was exquisite.

For the rest of the weekend, I wrote a bit more (although not nearly enough), and read. The latest issue of Blackbox Manifold is now up – have a browse.

* One of the poems in the little booklet that we didn’t get round to discussing was John Ashbery’s Some Trees. I’m not usually a huge fan of Ashbery (or at least, he’s my least favourite of the New York poets), but I did enjoy reading this several times yesterday. I should probably re-read a bit more of his work.

Blackbox Manifold 2

Issue Two of Sheffield-based Blackbox Manifold can now be found here.

It boasts all manner of excellent poetry from the likes of Paul Muldoon, John Kinsella, Geraldine Monk, Alan Halsey and Matthew Sweeney, and there are two poems from me in there - The Archaeologist and Sunday Cricket, Eastwood - so have a good browse through it and Issue One.