Letters From The Underworld, by Alan Baker

I enjoyed reading DA Prince's review of Alan Baker's Letters From The Underworld here at Sphinx. He's a poet who deserves much more attention, in my opinion, ploughing a very distinctive furrow of his own.

You can buy the book here, at The Red Ceilings Press website.

Poem in Antiphon Issue 24

It's been a long time since I've sent out any poetry submissions, so I'm absolutely delighted to have had a poem – Marginal – accepted for issue 24 of Antiphon. You can download a PDF of the magazine at the magazine's home page by following the link above.

A nice feature of Antiphon is that they include recordings of the poets reading their work – I'm afraid I haven't sent mine in yet, but I shall try to put that right this weekend.

But anyway, lovely to be published in the company of poets such as D A Prince and Rebecca Gethin.

The best yet?

I'm not entirely sure how long the Leicester Shindigs have been going. I could check, probably, by trawling back through this blog, but suffice it to say that it's been a good few years, from the early days at The Looking Glass to its current incarnation at The Western.

Whatever the case, last night's might just have been the best yet. Certainly top three, anyway. Four excellent readers, packed open mic slots, and an extremely appreciative audience. Kudos to Nine Arches Press and Crystal Clear Creators for all their work in building the event over the years, and to Jane Commane and Jonathan Taylor for their unflagging enthusiasm as hosts.

Let's start with the open mic. So many were signed up that the readers were restricted to a single poem (or in one case, piece of fiction) each, and that kept things flowing nicely. Regulars such as Roy Marshall, Jayne Stanton, Martin Malone and Charles Lauder Jr were reliably high quality, but there was a heartening number of first-timers, too.

The first guest, Michael W Thomas, was making his return after reading here a couple of years back. As then (when he read a superb poem about the secret language of tramps), he was quietly assured and utterly riveting. I'm always pleased to come across one of Michael's poems in a magazine (and fortunately, he's in plenty), and I rather hope that he's one of those small press poets who's actually widely read as a consequence of his prolific nature, his willingness to offer his work in a wide variety of outlets, and of course his skill as a writer.

Ben Wilkinson's pamphlet For Real, winner of the Poetry Business competition, was a real advance on the anyway highly accomplished The Sparks, and his reading from it confirmed all those good first impressions. It's poetry that thinks very hard about what poetry can do, but it's never less than accessible and engaged with the real world.

After the break, DA Prince read from her recently-released second collection, Common Ground. She's another poet who manages to be understated and precise without diminishing the emotional punch, and she read the same way, giving every word the chance to pull its weight.

Andrew Taylor brought the evening to a close with poems from his debut, Radio Mast Horizon, as well as two forthcoming chapbooks - his poems also work quietly, and perhaps with more of a cumulative effect than the other readers, but again without sacrificing anything in the way of readability (or listenability, perhaps that should be). I look forward to reading more.

So, the only problem now is that Shindig had set itself a very high standard to maintain in 2015 - get along in January to see what's next.

Leicester Shindig - November 2014

This is on Monday - I'll see you there, won't I?

Free Verse 2014

On Saturday, I was down in Red Lion Square in London for the Free Verse Poetry Book Fair. I attended a couple of years ago (or was it three?), and it was obvious then that it had bags of potential, but I was staggered at just how busy it was throughout the day on Saturday. From beginning to end, the main room was exactly as it appears in the above photo, while the readings and talks were well attended.

I particularly enjoyed the Knives, Forks and Spoons Press readings, especially Sarah James (and bought her collection, Be[yond]), and the readings from Bill Griffiths' work by Geraldine Monk and Alan Halsey (pictured below).

As always at such events, a large part of the pleasure was in catching up with other poets and publishers, and I chatted to Helena Nelson, D A Prince, Alan Baker, Michael McKimm, Peter Carpenter and Roy Marshall, among others, as well, of course, as to my own publisher, Jane Commane of Nine Arches Press (below).

It was only afterwards that I realised that, in the hustle and bustle in the Conway Hall, I'd managed to somehow miss Alison Brackenbury and the Sidekick Books stand - that's a mark of how busy it was.

I read alongside fellow Nine Arches poet Josh Ekroy, and Worple Press poets Mary Woodward and Martin Crucefix, at the Garden Cafe out in the middle of the square. There was a decent-sized audience, and we were on just before the arrival of the marchers in support of the NHS (and Billy Bragg, a longtime hero of mine). Me and Josh are pictured below - I think I need to work on my microphone technique.

The Elephant Tests reviewed at Antiphon

Rosemary Badcoe has reviewed The Elephant Tests in issue 8 of the excellent online journal Antiphon. I'm very grateful to her for such a generous and full consideration of the book, and I should also point out that the same issue contains DA Prince's review of fellow Nine Archer Angela France's collection Hide.

There's lots of excellent poetry in this issue too. New work by Harriet Tarlo is always worthy of mention, as is anything by Roy Marshall. Two very different poets, but both consistently high quality, and it's typical of Antiphon's eclectic approach that they should both appear here.

States of Independence - the best yet?

Saturday's States of Independence event at De Montfort University was arguably the best yet - certainly it seemed busier than ever.

I was only able to be there for part of the afternoon, but I did catch readings by Simon Perril and Julia Gaze, promoting their Open House chapbooks. I bought both, and very good they are too - I'll have more to say about them in a later post.

I caught up with plenty of familiar faces from Leicester, Nottingham, Birmingham and further afield - Roy Marshall, Mal Dewhirst, Alan Baker, CJ Allen, DA Prince, Mark Goodwin and Jane Commane among them - and it was nice to meet Ian Parks for the first time.

Oh, and I bought a few more books. A chapbook of translations of TH Parry-Williams from Shoestring Press is excellent, and I also picked up Shoestring's Commons, Nadia Kingsley and David Calcutt's Road Kill, from Fair Acre Press*, and a book of local history, Getting The Coal, which I've been enjoying immensely. Congratulations to all concerned on another superb event.

* Fair Acre also had a gorgeous-looking book, Shropshire's Butterflies, which ought to appeal to the natural historian every bit as much as the poetry reader. Definitely one to add to the must-buy list.

A Night of HappenStance

Six HappenStance poets from as far away as Spain will be gathering for a reading downstairs at Lee Rosy’s in Nottingham (17, Broad Street, NG1 3AJ – opposite the Broadway cinema) on 26th November, from 7.30pm. Entrance is £4, or £3 for concessions.

Helena Nelson (editor of HappenStance Press), Ross Kightly, Marilyn Ricci, Robin Vaughan-Williams, DA Prince, and Matthew Stewart (who will be in the country to launch his new pamphlet, Inventing Truth) are the readers.

That's six really fine poets, and I only wish I could be there to hear them – I'll be away because of work. 

Helena will also be adjudicating the Nottingham Open Poetry Competition at 2.45pm at the Mechanics Institute (at 3 North Sherwood Street, Nottingham, NG1 4AX).

New Walk

Time for another intermission in the constant stream of hastily-written NaPoWriMo poems, this time to flag up Issue 2 of Leicester-based literary mag New Walk.

It well and truly confirms the good impression made by the debut issue back in the autumn, with poetry from, among others, Alice Oswald, Carrie Etter, Matthew Stewart, Dan Wyke, Tom Pow, D A Prince and  Martyn Crucefix, plus fiction from Bill Jones and Robert McGowan.

Best of all, perhaps, given how difficuklt it can be to find extensive writing about poetry these days, there's a wealth of good reviews, essays and comment. J M Coetzee writes on Zbigniew Herbert, Martin Stannard (the academic, not the poet) on Larkin's Letters To Monica, and there's much more - I look forward to getting stuck into it this weekend.

Among the reviews, there's Geoffrey Heptonstall's take on hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica. I'll take a closer look at it on here later (probably after NaPoWriMo is finished), but for now I'll just say that I'm grateful to him for such a thoughtful and generous response to the book.

Under The Radar 7

The new issue of Under The Radar arrived in the post the other day, and a very handsome publication it is too. It's now perfect-bound, giving a higher quality feel to what's already a fine magazine.

It's a short-story special, too, a welcome boost for a form that has been increasingly sidelined in the last few decades, but which seems to enjoying something of a resurgence. Joel Lane (whose poetry collection The Autumn Myth I'm currently reading) and Tony Williams are among the writers featured. UTR publishers Nine Arches Press are planning to launch a series of short story pamphlets - HOTWIRE - so expect to hear more.

On the poetry side, there's excellent work from the likes of Nigel Hutchinson, D A Prince, Roy Marshall and A C Evans, plus Alison Brackenbury reviewing Anne Stevenson, Roz Goddard on three HappenStance chapbooks, and my reviews of Angela France's Occupation and Deborah Tyler-Bennett's Pavilion. All for just £4, too. What are you waiting for?

Magma 48

The new issue of Magma arrived the other day, and very good it is too. The poetry itself is excellent, with particular favourites so far being DA Prince's three pieces (especially Bog oaks), and poems by Jonathan Edwards, Helen Mort and Michael McKimm. There's loads more too - they seem to be packing an awful lot in these days.

The articles are the highlight of this issue for me, though. I enjoyed the ten poets writing on 'beauty', and Eavan Boland's piece on Robert Herrick. Best of all is Karen Solie (one of my favourite poets) on first coming across Frank O'Hara's poetry. There are a couple of poems by Solie, too, which are almost worth the admission price alone.

I reviewed books by David Briggs, Rebecca Goss and John Ash for this issue (all very different, but all with a lot to offer too), but the review I really want to highlight here is David Morley's take on Martin Figura's Whistle, a book I've mentioned on here before, and which I'll return to soon. It's a brilliant piece of work, and the review does it perfect justice.

Hooray for HappenStance!

Wonderful to get back to the news that HappenStance won this year's Michael Marks Award for Poetry Pamphlets. Matthew Stewart has the news here, and although I know HappenStance supremo Helena Nelson wasn't able to attend the awards night, poets D A Prince and Clare Best were there (and their own books are both great examples of the high-quality work the press is publishing).

I hope HappenStance will continue to go from strength to strength - production values are very high, but most crucially, Nell has the knack of unearthing fine poets.

Subscribe to HappenStance

I’ve said it before, and I am of course biased, but HappenStance is one of the UK’s most consistently interesting poetry presses. I’m in awe of quite how one-woman publishing team Helena Nelson manages to maintain such a high-quality and increasingly prolific output, but she does, and it shows no signs of stopping in 2010.

Among the chapbooks coming out are Jon Stone’s Scarecrows and one from Tim Love, plus a debut chapbook from Matthew Stewart is due next year. The back catalogue, of course, includes pamphlets from Alison Brackenbury, Mark Halliday, Ruth Pitter, Michael Mackmin, Andrew Philip, James Wood, Rob Mackenzie, Gill McEvoy, Tom Duddy, Frances Thompson, Marilyn Ricci, Patricia Ace and Eleanor Livingstone (plus many more, including yours truly), and a really fine full collection from DA Prince.

For just £7.50 (in the UK, £12 elsewhere), you can subscribe to HappenStance for the year. For that, you get a chapbook of your choice and the latest instalment of The HappenStance Story, plus a discount on other books, and advance notice of and invitations to launches. You also get the satisfaction of supporting a great poetry publisher. Give it a try…

HappenStance launch

Yesterday I went to the launch of two of the latest HappenStance publications - Marilyn Ricci's chapbook Rebuilding A Number 39, and DA Prince's first full collection, Nearly The Happy Hour - in Leicester.

It was good to meet Marilyn, and to see Davina and HappenStance publisher Helena Nelson again, and the excellent turn-out on another day of foul weather was testament to a strong grass-roots poetry scene in Leicester.

Both poets read very well. It's interesting that a couple of Davina's poems concern swans, because her poems remind me of that old thing about appearing serene and elegant on the surface, while all sorts of things are going on just out of sight. It's all far more complicated than it first appears, but she uses the rhythms of everyday speech very well, so it's never difficult. She also writes very good light verse - an underrated skill, in my book. I should also point out that we both went to the same school, years apart, so it's good to be able to cheer her success.

Marilyn's writing is often grounded in family memory, and both she and Helena pointed out that, while that sort of thing is sometimes derided by poetry critics, there's no reason why it should be, when it's done well. It was here - for a start there's plenty of character in the poems, with everyday (Leicester) speech well captured*. There's also a sparingly used surrealism, which gives several of the poems an element of surprise. And finally, you're plunged right into the middle of the memory so that, I suppose, it's rather like recalling them yourself, rather than being told them by somebody else.

* One poem, Yakking, uses the title word in a sense that is, in my experience, exclusive to Leicester and its environs. To 'yak' means to throw, usually quite violently, and although a lot of local dialect words seem to be passing out of use, this is one I still hear (and use) regularly, not least on the cricket field. It's always been a source of annoyance to me that our accent and dialect gets so badly represented in the media. On the rare occasions that a TV programme is set in Leicester, for example, they generally use a Birmingham accent, but the reality is quite different. You can hear a huge difference between Nuneaton, on the Brum side of Watling Street, and Hinckley, only three or four miles away on the Leicester side of what I've always thought is a big linguistic divide, almost certainly down to the fact that we were part of the old Danelaw. In fact, we were more heavily settled by the Vikings than just about anywhere in England, as evidenced by all those Leicester surnames like Kettle, Herrick and Askill.

Another quick reminder...

A week on Saturday, two new HappenStance poetry publications by Leicestershire poets will be launched – D A Prince’s Nearly The Happy Hour, a first book-length collection for both author and publisher, and Rebuilding A Number 39, by Marilyn Ricci, the author’s first chapbook collection. Come along and listen and celebrate the launch, and talk to the poets and HappenStance publisher Helena Nelson in person.

It's on Saturday, September 6th, at 2.45 for 3pm, at the Friends’ Meeting House, 16 Queens Road (junction with Victoria Park Road), Leicester LE2 1WP. Email nell@happenstancepress.com if you plan to attend. I'll see you there.

Two for the diary

On Saturday, September 6th, the Society of Friends Meeting House on Queens Road, Leicester, will play host to the launch of Leicester poet D A Prince’s Nearly The Happy Hour, the first full-length collection to be published by HappenStance.

Another Leicester poet, Marilyn Ricci, will launch her HappenStance chapbook Rebuilding A Number 39 there, and of course both poets will be reading and signing books. The reading starts at 3pm, and you’re asked to e-mail nell@happenstancepress.com to say if you plan to attend. Both are Leicester poets

Later in September, on the 22nd, I’ll be the special guest at the Zest! Open Floor Poetry Night, at Alexander’s Jazz Bar, Rufus Court, Chester, reading poems old and new (and of course selling and signing copies of Troy Town and Making The Most Of The Light). Admission is £3/£2, and the poetry starts at 8pm, and of course you can come along and read your own work in the open mic slot. The evening is hosted by HappenStance poet Gill McEvoy.

DA Prince book launch

A couple of weeks ago, Scottish chapbook press HappenStance published its first full-length poetry collection, DA Prince's Nearly The Happy Hour. I haven't got it yet, but this is a poet whose work appears in all sorts of poetry magazines on a very regular basis, and it's always high quality, so I will. I read with her in Nottingham last spring and she was compelling in a very understated way - that's the way her poems work, too, so treat yourself.

HappenStance goes from strength to strength, and hopefully there'll be more full-length collections in the future to complement the growing and ever more varied range of chapbooks.