Martin Stannard at 70

I thought I'd posted this a couple of weeks back, and realise now that I didn't, but better late than never – this is an excellent tribute to the poet Martin Stannard, with contributions from Ian McMillan, Alan Baker, Luke Kennard, David Belbin, Adrian Buckner and many more. Martin Stannard's poetry, and reviews, are never less than entertaining and engrossing, which is pretty much what I want from them before anything else. Of course, there's more to them than that, but read the tributes, and you'll want to read the poetry.

Luke Kennard wins The Forward Prize

Good to see Luke Kennard winning this year's Forward Poetry Prize for his excellent Notes on the Sonnets, first and foremost because it's a great collection and just the latest in a line of superb books that he's written, but also because he's a thoroughly nice chap. Good for Penned in the Margins, too, for publishing it – it's heartening to see a small press winning. 

Lots to enjoy (and to catch up with) in the rest of the shortlists, too, and well done to Caleb Femi for winning Best First Collection. 

An evening of poetry at Kenilworth Arts Festival

A week on Friday (September 16th), this rather splendid event is taking place as part of the Kenilworth Arts Festival. David Morley will be joined by Sarah Howe, Luke Kennard, Jo Bell, Claire Trevien and Jonathan Edwards at the Talisman Theatre for an evening of poetry. Follow the link for details of how to book tickets.

The Forward Book of Poetry 2017

The 25th annual Forward Prize anthology is out on September 15th – it contains all the poems shortlisted for this year's prizes, plus a selection of those highly commended by the judges. Those featured include Vahni Capildeo, John Clegg, Maura Dooley, Ian Duhig, Leontia Flynn, Kathleen Jamie, Luke Kennard, William Letford, Melissa Lee-Houghton, Hannah Lowe, Roy McFarlane, Helen Mort, Alice Oswald, Denise Riley, Carol Rumens, Ian Seed, Julia Webb and Luke Wright.

Prac Crit

Edition six of Prac Crit is online now, with Karen Solie Stephan Burt and Luke Kennard the featured poets. Solie's a poet who's work I absolutely love, and Kennard isn't far behind, either. Lots of great insights to be found - give it a read.

Poetry: The Next Generation

The Poetry Book Society has announced its 20 'Next Generation' poets, the once a decade list that aims to, as chair of judges Ian McMillan puts it, "lead our national cultural conversation for many years to come".

As always, there's going to be a lot of argument about who was included and who wasn't, as well as the criteria used to make the choices and the entry requirements that do seem to make things harder for small presses.

I'm not going to rehash those arguments here, but I do find Daljit Nagra's inclusion slightly strange. Not that he's not a fine poet, just that I would have thought he's already very firmly established as one of poetry's big names - I would have thought the place could better have gone to a less well-known poet. On the other hand, maybe outside poetryworld he's not that well-known, and this is, after all, an attempt to get people who wouldn't otherwise read poetry to pick up a book.

Anyway, congratulations to all concerned, and I'm particularly pleased to see Rebecca Goss, Luke Kennard and Helen Mort among the 20 - all poets whose work I enjoy a lot. Of the others, there are several who I'm still to read, so if nothing else it will give me some ideas for the future.

End of year lists

I'd like to beg forgiveness for a little bit of own-trumpet-blowing now, as Rob Mackenzie has selected The Elephant Tests as one of his favourite books of 2013, over at his excellent blog, Surroundings.

It's an intriguing list all-round. I'd agree with pretty much everything Rob says about the Luke Kennard and Ahren Warner collections. The latter, I know, seems to have divided opinions pretty sharply, but as Rob says, the sheer ambition and individuality at the very least mean that it forces you to have an opinion about it.

Andy Philip's collection is awaiting me at home, and I look forward to reading it over the holiday. He set himself a very high standard to maintain with his debut, The Ambulance Box, but the poems that I've read from the new book raise the bar even higher, if anything.

The Gillian Allnutt and Dai George books both sound right up my street, so I'll be looking to get hold of them soon, and the Robert Bly/Tomas Transtromer letters too.

Finally, Rob's own excellent second collection, The Good News, is available here, and deserves to be on more than a few end of year lists itself - it's a genuinely questioning, intellectually curious book, yet every bit as readable and playful as his debut.

All of which reminds me, I need to compile my own lists...

Maps and Legends

This is out from Nine Arches Press next week, just in time for Christmas. It's an anthology celebrating five years of Nine Arches, and is edited by Jo Bell, featuring poetry from Claire Crowther, David Morley, Luke Kennard, Maria Taylor, Angela France, Daniel Sluman, Alistair Noon, Tom Chivers, David Hart, Roz Goddard, Phil Brown, Deborah Tyler-Bennett, Ruth Larbey and myself.

The anthology will be launched with a reading next Wednesday, December 11th, from 7.15-9pm, at Room 101, Library of Birmingham. Tickets are £6 / £4.

Winter Wordsmiths

Following on from that dip into the Wordsmiths & Co archives, there are a couple of winter Wordsmiths & Co shows coming up. starting tomorrow night (November 14th) at Warwick Arts Centre at 7.45pm, when the guests will be poets Tony Walsh aka Longfella poet, Luke Kennard, Helen Calcutt and Al Hutchins.

Wordsmiths & Co is back at Warwick on December 2nd, when the guests are poets Salena Godden, Helen Mort, Claire Trévien and Ben Norris. Sadly, work's going to get in the way of me getting along to either of these, but I recommend them very highly. Quite apart from the excellent poets, the whole format is a really new spin on the traditional reading format, with interviews as well as poems.

Wordsmiths & Co is a collaboration between Nine Arches Press and Apples and Snakes.

Andy Brown at Peony Moon

I really enjoyed reading the new work by Andy Brown posted at Michelle McGrane's superlative Peony Moon - the poems are from his new Salt collection, The Fool and the Physician.

He's one of those poets who seems effortlessly able to write out of a number of different traditions and 'schools', and while I suppose you can't always trust blurbs, in this case you should! Luke Kennard, John Burnside and Lee Harwood all have good things to say about him, and I'm not going to argue with a triumvirate like that.

Anyway, Andy's Fall of the Rebel Angels: Poems 1996-2006 is a book I go back to a lot, so I look forward to reading the new collection.

It's Shindig time again

There's a great line-up for the latest Nine Arches Press Shindig, at The Western, on Western Road, Leicester, tomorrow night at 7.30, with Luke Kennard, Simon Perrill, Joel Lane and Lydia Towsey reading, plus plenty of open mic slots (you can sign up when you arrive). Entry is free. See you there...

Now it's even easier...

...to buy Nine Arches Press books. The new online shop is up and running, meaning you can directly order copies of Under The Radar magazine, short stories by Joel Lane, or poetry from the likes of David Hart, David Morley, Roz Goddard, Luke Kennard, Myra Connell, Claire Crowther, Ruth Larbey, Simon Turner, Mark Goodwin, Peter Carpenter and myself.

You don't need a PayPal account (no bad thing, given the problems I've had getting my account to work lately), and postage is just £1 per item.

There are also seperate pages for each publication now (here's the one for my collection, hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica), and a sneak-preview of some of Nine Arches' forthcoming publications.

Buzzwords Open Poetry Competition 2011

Buzzwords, in Cheltenham, is one of the longest-running reading series in British poetry. Having read there back in February with Luke Kennard, I can vouch for what an excellent audience it attracts - attentive, appreciative, and keen to buy books. It all makes for an entertaining and rewarding evening.

It also makes a point of paying all readers, and its annual poetry competition helps fund that. As you can see here, this year's competition is being judged by Alison Brackenbury, and carries a £600 first prize. Other prizes include one for entries from Gloucestershire. You've got until July to enter, and can pay by cheque or PayPal, so why not have a look at what's required?

While I remember...

I meant to post this when it appeared on Gists & Piths last week, but late's better than never. Some excellent points about Luke Kennard's Planet-shaped Horse, and scroll down to the bottom where George Ttoouli helpfully breaks my book book title down into its constituent parts.

Buzzing

Any reading series that's been going for over five years has to be doing something seriously right, and at last night's Buzzwords event in Cheltenham, it was easy to see what.

For a start, there's clearly a really strong hardcore of attendees, who were enthusiastic participants in the workshop and open mic parts of the evening, but as attentive an audience as I've ever seen during the main readings.

It was an all-Nine Arches Press affair, of course, with me and Luke Kennard reading, and Simon Turner among the open mic-ers. And the whole open mic was excellent, with plenty of variety, imagination, and energy on offer from all concerned.

Luke's reading, entirely from his new pamphlet Planet-shaped Horse, was absolutely superb, I thought. His poetry quite rightly gets huge praise for its wit, inventiveness and energy, but I think occasionally reviewers skip over the more serious side. Perhaps it's because all the different elements seem to co-exist happily (rather than him being a poet who writes in distinct modes at different times) that it's easy to miss some of them. But I'm rambling. It's late...

I enjoyed reading, always a sign that it's gone fairly well, I think. I'm very grateful to organiser Angela France for inviting us to read, and I came away with all sorts of ideas skittering around my head (also a good sign, until you try to sleep).

Oh, set-list - here it is:

Prelude For Glass Harmonica

Request Hour At The Numbers Station

The American version

The Meeting Place

Variations On A Theme By J A Baker

The sea at Ashby de la Zouch

West Leicester Lullaby

Warning Against Using These Poems As A Map

Worst Case Scenario

Cahoots

Nocturne For Glass Harmonica

Buzzwords reading

This Sunday, February 6th, I'll be reading at the Buzzwords Poetry Night, in Cheltenham, with the prodigiously talented Luke Kennard.

Luke's got a new pamphlet, Planet-shaped Horse, out now from Nine Arches Press, so it promises to be an entertaining evening.

It all takes place at The Brown Jug, 242 Bath Road, Cheltenham, GL53 7NB. The readings start at 8pm, but come along at 7pm and Luke and I will be running a workshop. All are welcome.

* Luke's pamphlet is launched tomorrow night (Thursday the 3rd) at The Priory Rooms, 40 Bull Street, Birmingham B4 6AF. Entry is free, and other readers include David Hart, Milorad Krystanovich and Simon Turner.

Shindig!

Last night’s Shindig at Wilde’s, Leamington Spa, turned out to be a great way to round off a weekend of writing.

It’s a lovely venue, for a start, which always makes a difference, but it’s the poetry that really matters. Myra Connell launched her new Nine Arches Press book, From The Boat (full review coming soon), and read beautifully. At one stage, she mentioned her interest in dreams, and the poems I enjoyed most were those in which you seem to flicker from wakefulness to a dream state. It’s subtly done – you never got the feeling that she was forcing the poems to go anywhere they weren’t meant to go, and yet they did go to some strange places.

The open mic readers were as consistently good as I can ever remember. Partly that was due to the fact that several of Luke Kennard’s students got up and read – he’s clearly teaching them well – but there were fine poems from elsewhere too. Always nice to hear people read someone else’s poems at an open mic, too, so I enjoyed both Simon Turner and George Ttoouli’s stints.

I was pretty happy with my own set, just after the interval – just one slight stumble! It was largely made up of newish poems (well, post-Troy Town, anyway), and it’s always nice to see what response they get. Pretty good, on last night’s evidence, which is encouraging.

I’ve heard Luke Kennard read before, and the same thing strikes me every time – above all, he never forgets that poetry is there to be enjoyed. That’s not to say that there isn’t a great deal of depth to his poetry – there is, and it bears repeated reading or listening – but he’s always thoroughly entertaining (how can you not like someone who orders a bottle of wine mid-set, can’t find enough change, and downsizes to a glass?).

He’s doing a book with Nine Arches early next year, but in the meantime, I’ll be going back to his Salt collections. He’s engagingly modest about the many laurels heaped upon him, but they’re really thoroughly deserved.

I had a chance to talk to Jane Commane and Matt Nunn about my own second collection, due to come out through Nine Arches late this year. It’s all starting to come together well, and I’m busy trying to finish a few poems and revise a few more this week. We talked about possible titles, too. I’ve got one in mind, which Jane pointed out sounded rather like it ought to be an album by The Fall – never a bad thing, in my book.

What else? Well, Under The Radar 5 is out, with poems by the likes of David Morley, Rupert Loydell, Claire Crowther, Mark Goodwin and Sophie Mayer, as well as Myra Connell. I’ve enjoyed reading the reviews, too – Matt Nunn’s thoughtful assessment of Tony Williams’ book is excellent, and Jane Holland is good on HappenStance chapbooks by Alison Brackenbury, Rose Cook and Sally Festing.

Oh, and finally, my set list:

The sea at Ashby de la Zouch
Prelude for Glass Harmonica
The Memory Of Water
The American version
Fantasia for Glass Harmonica
Uchronie
The Meeting Place
Hutt River Province
Worst Case Scenario
Happiness
Cahoots

Myra Connell - From The Boat

As I mentioned earlier in the week, Myra Connell is among the readers at this Sunday's Nine Arches Press Shindig at Wilde's Bar, Leamington Spa. The others, as if I'd let you forget even for a minute, are Luke Kennard and myself, and there'll be open mic slots available to sign up to on the night.

Myra will be launching her chapbook (a very substantial one, too) From The Boat. I've been enjoying reading it this last week - it's allusive, often elusive poetry, showing a refreshing lack of fear of taking risks or, when the occasion demands, communicating simply and honestly.

Anyway, I'll have much more to say about it soon, with a full review, but in the meantime let's just say that I recommend it very warmly.

There's plenty more of interest in the Nine Arches catalogue, too, and some great new releases to come very soon (I've been awaiting Simon Turner's second collection very eagerly, and Mark Goodwin's chapbook sequence Shod also promises great things, judging by what we heard at the Leicester Shindig at the end of January).

But anyway, if you'd like a signed copy of Myra's chapbook, there's only one place to be on Sunday evening.

Leamington Spa Shindig revisited

Just a quick reminder that the next Nine Arches Press Shindig is at Wilde's Wine Bar, The Parade, Leamington Spa, this Sunday, March 14th.

It's the Leamington launch for Myra's new chapbook From The Boat, and as if that's not enough there's the added attraction of Luke Kennard, whose collections, including The Harbour Beyond The Movie and The Migraine Hotel, have met with critical acclaim and impressive sales. I'll be reading a full set, and there are open mic slots available too (sign up on the night).

The next Leicester event is at The Looking Glass on Monday, April 12th - Simon Turner and Myra Connell will be joined by Leicester's own Lydia Towsey - hope to see you there.

PS. I'll be posting more about Myra's chapbook later in the week, and also hope to post a little flurry of reviews next week. They're all sitting around on my hard drive - they just need tidying up a bit.

Leamington Spa Shindig

I'm delighted to be reading at the next Nine Arches Press Shindig, at Wilde's Wine Bar, The Parade, Leamington Spa, on Sunday, March 14th.

It's the Leamington launch for Myra's new chapbook From The Boat, and as if that's not enough there's the added attraction of Luke Kennard, whose collections, including The Harbour Beyond The Movie and The Migraine Hotel, have met with critical acclaim and impressive sales. There are open mic slots available too (sign up on the night).

The Shindig schedule is now into full swing, alternating between Leamington and Leicester on a monthly basis. The next Leicester event is at The Looking Glass on Monday, April 12th - the line-up's almost confirmed, so watch this space.