Happy birthday, HappenStance!

Just about exactly 10 years ago now, I was down in North Devon for the readings and prize-givings for the Plough Prize, in which I'd won the open category.

While there I met the judge, Helena Nelson, and she explained that she had just started a new chapbook press, HappenStance, from her home in Fife. She'd tested the water with a chapbook of her own 'Unsuitable Poems', and followed it up with Andrew Philip's wonderful Tonguefire (if you can find a copy of this anywhere, I recommend it very highly).

To my surprise, she asked me to send her every poem I had, with a view to publishing a pamphlet. At the time, I think I only had 30-35 that I thought of as finished in any way, but over the next few months, Nell and I worked away at them, and the end result was my chapbook Making The Most Of The Light, which was launched in Edinburgh in October 2005.

HappenStance is celebrating its 10th birthday this week, having moved on to publishing full collections by the likes of DA Prince as well as chapbooks, and even a quick look at their website will reveal the calibre of poets they've worked with over the last decade.

So, I just wanted to say a big Happy Birthday to it, and a huge thank-you to Nell for taking a chance on publishing my poetry. I'm proud, and above all very grateful, to have been associated with such a wonderful press.

NOTE: I do still have two copies of Making The Most Of The Light left - none of the poems in it have appeared in my subsequent collections. Email me if you're interested in receiving one.

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...

Some recent reading

Browsing through my blogs list this week, I enjoyed reading this post on Andrew Shields' always excellent blog. It helps that You Are The Everything is just about my favourite REM song, too.

Meanwhile, over at the Magma blog, there's Andrew Philip's thoughtful review of John F Deane's Snow Falling On Chestnut Hill. I've seen plenty of online debate recently about what a poetry review should do - this one makes me want to read more of the poetry in question, and to find out more about the poet. That's what I'm looking for, really.

Horizon Review 5

I've been out of circulation for the last 10 days or so, and returned to the usual backlog of emails, plus all sorts of interesting goings-on in the poetry world. I'll post more on some of those, such as the TS Eliot Prize Readings and Michelle McGrane's new book The Suitable Girl, later in the week, but for now, I'll just flag up the latest issue of Horizon Review.

I really do think it's going from strength to strength, so kudos to both former editor Jane Holland and new editor Katy Evans-Bush. There's a wealth of reviews. essays, interviews and stories in there, before you even get to the poetry from the likes of Julia Bird, Alison Brackenbury, David Briggs, Ian Duhig, Roz Goddard, Mark Granier, Helen Ivory, Ira Lightman, Rob A Mackenzie, Andrew Philip and Andrew Shields, to name just a few. I've got a piece in there too -  Zugunruhe - which appears in hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica.

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…

Lists, lists, lists

Good piece by Todd Swift over at Eyewear, talking about the usual glut of year-end book lists. I tend to agree with a lot of what Todd's saying, although it is fair to point out once again that I'm always a bit underwhelmed by Don Paterson. I bought Rain the other day, along with John Burnside's The Hunt In The Forest, and although I will take time to digest and re-read them, I'd have to say I prefer the latter. As usual with Paterson, I find myself thinking "it's good, but is it really that good?"

Meanwhile, Peony Moon is featuring mini-lists from a wide variety of poets. They make very interesting reading, and it's good to see Andrew Philip's wonderful The Ambulance Box and Clare Crowther's The Clockwork Gift cropping up with such regularity. I found it very difficult to narrow things down to three books, because I get the impression it's been a pretty strong year.

With that in mind, I'll be doing my usual round-up of favourite books some time after December 25th, but in the meantime, look out later this week for reviews of Simon Armitage and Tim Dee's anthology The Poetry Of Birds, and the similarly themed US anthology Bright Wings, edited by Billy Collins.

Current reading includes John James' Collected Poems, George Ttoouli's splendid Static Exile, and a selection from Francis Kilvert's diaries (I'd been looking for a cheap paperback of the latter for ages, and found one for £2 in Leicester on Friday).

Cord power

The decline of the UK's corduroy industry is a major concern in these difficult economic times, but as you'll see from the photograph above, poets are fully alive to the threat and are already taking action. Rob Mackenzie (left), Andrew Philip (right) and myself were all sporting corduroy jackets at our recent reading at Word Power in Edinburgh - I can only imagine James Wood's was in the wash, forcing him to cut a more elegant figure instead.

Remember, by going out and buying just one piece of corduroy clothing now, you can help save an ancient and honorable British industry, and at the same time ensure that no poets will go naked this winter. And you really don't want to see that.

Thanks to Eddie Gibbons for the photo.

Northern (high)lights

Back to work today, after a wonderful weekend in Edinburgh. The reading at Word Power on Saturday, with James Wood, Rob Mackenzie and Andrew Philip, was an extremely enjoyable affair. As so often seems to happen, despite having made our choices wholly independently, the poems we read clustered round a couple of definite themes – an illustration of the poet as social barometer, as James suggested.

It was good to catch up with Helena Nelson, and to meet Eddie Gibbons and Colin Will there, the latter in full highland dress and unquestionably the most smartly dressed man I’ve ever seen at a reading, a consequence of him officiating at Kevin Cadwallender’s wedding the same day (apropos of nothing, Cadwallender is a fantastic surname, isn’t it?). It’s not like anyone else looked too shabby, either, but Colin raised the bar for the rest of us to try to follow. He's a fine bird poet, too, which always gets my vote.

Afterwards, Andy and Rob headed off to do two more readings, and James and I took a more leisurely tour of the city, taking in all manner of architectural and real ale delights, and talking poetry all the way. A huge amount of ground – both literal and literary – was covered, and great fun it was too.

On the way back home yesterday, it struck me that I’ve got umpteen unfinished blog posts that I really need to get cracking on this week. So, coming very soon, expect pieces on The Salt Companion To Lee Harwood and Not The Full Story: Six Interviews With Lee Harwood, an appreciation of the splendid ONE magazine (go and appreciate it yourself in the meantime, at great length), and much more. Claire Crowther and Siriol Troup’s new collections arrived at the weekend, so they’ll feature too, and there are a few other books I’ve been itching to write about. Oh, and there'll be a few thoughts on the poetry business itself, and on selling your collection, in the light of the outstanding success Andy and Rob have had (Andy is already on the third print run of The Ambulance Box - most 'name' poets would be more than a little proud of that).

Word Power!

Word Power, at 43-45 West Nicolson Street, Edinburgh, plays host to a free feast of poetry this Saturday lunchtime.

Starting at 12noon sharp, I'll be reading along with fellow HappenStancers James Wood, Andrew Philip and Rob Mackenzie.

Rob's chapbook, The Clown of Natural Sorrow, was published by HappenStance Press in 2005. His first collection, The Opposite of Cabbage, was published by Salt in March 2009.

Andrew has published two poetry pamphlets with HappenStance - Tonguefire and Andrew Philip: A Sampler. The Ambulance Box, his first full-length collection, was published in March by Salt.

James W Wood’s pamphlet, The Theory of Everything, was published by HappenStance in 2006, and Inextinguishable by Knucker Press in 2008.

More information is available by following the link, but all you really need to know is that all three are very fine poets (and if you've been reading here for any length of time, you'll know why). We'll all have books available to buy, of course, so drop in.

Review: The Ambulance Box, by Andrew Philip

Salt, 2009, £12.99

Dotted throughout this memorable debut collection (in Salt’s now-familiar elegant hardback style) are a series of four very brief Hebridean Thumbnails.

The first reads simply (but very evocatively) “islands buried in the sky’s white sands”. And not only is it a good precursor of what is to follow, in terms of style, it’s also a good physical description of Andrew Philip’s poems. For ‘islands’, read ‘words’. For ‘sky’, read ‘page’.

Which is all a convoluted way of saying that Philip is a poet who writes just enough, and no more. Few of his poems appear dense, or try to pack too much in. Instead, they’re generally little archipelagos of words, a little bare and unadorned at first glance, but quickly giving up great riches of both sound and sense, and each with a subtly distinctive character.

Many of the best pieces concern Philip’s son, Aidan, who was born and died on the same day in 2005. There’s absolutely nothing inevitable about that, either – it’s all too easy to write honestly, but not terribly well, about such an emotionally devastating event.

But, to state the obvious (if you’ve read any of his poems), Philip does write very well. Here’s Lullaby, for example, in its entirety:

this is the arm that held you
this is the hand that cradled your cold feet

these are the ears that heard you
whimper and cough throughout your brush with light

this is the chest that warmed you
these are the eyes that caught your glimpse of life

this is the man you fathered -
his voided love, his writhen pride and grief

Now it’d be hard to be more emotionally honest than that, and yet at no time does it cross over into self-pity, or into asking the reader for sympathy. On the other hand, neither does it allow the very real tragedy to become a mere vehicle for the poetry – the shock of that line “this is the man you fathered” is a very quiet shock, and all the more effective for it.

Elsewhere, Scotland itself is a major concern, with Philip writing in Scots as well as English, but equally musically in both (The Meisure o a Nation was a particular favourite, with its surprising and sometimes funny juxtapositions). Sometimes, they cross over into each other, and you get memorable phrases such as “this caged / and blootered heart”.

Two of the poems from his HappenStance pamphlet Tonguefire (Man With A Dove On His Head and Tonguefire Night) appear here, and both, I think, demonstrate Philip’s very considerable poetic ambition. They’re genuinely mythological in their scope – that is, they conceal real truths within a fictional, perhaps even absurd, setting. That’s not an easy thing to do without looking ridiculous, or pompous, or both, which is probably why so few poets even try these days, but they’re right up there among the highlights here.

Finally, I hope I haven’t given the impression that, especially because of the subject matter, Philip’s poetry is unremittingly dark. Quite the opposite, in fact. He understands perfectly that loss and love are inextricably linked, and that neither can ever cancel out the other, and he conjures light seemingly from nowhere, from the debris and detritus of everyday life.

Nowhere is that better displayed than in In Praise Of Dust, a gorgeous love poem that (almost) closes the collection. It ends with:

On this of all days, let’s not forget
the facts:
from dust we are
to dust we are returning. In between

our substance is less certain:
a trick of chemistry
gospel
and perhaps the light

from the black lamp that burns beside our bed
falling on your
spirited breathing
muscle and skin.

That says more than I could ever hope to in a review. Go to Salt’s website, and buy this book and Rob Mackenzie’s now. You’ll be helping keep a very fine publisher afloat, but you’ll also be buying two of the collections (let alone debut collections) of the year.

EDIT: I've just noticed that the formatting has disappeared on that final extract. Apologies for that - I'm sure there's a way of getting it right, I just can't get it to happen just now!

Just one book...

I've been away all week, and returned to the depressing news that Salt Publishing is going through a major financial crisis at the moment, sad when you consider what they've added to the UK (and international) poetry scene in recent years. You can read more about it here.

There is hope, though. They're still trading, for a start, so now's the time to support them (and other small presses, for that matter). Have a read of the message below from Salt supremo Chris Hamilton-Emery, and treat yourself to some summer reading. I've talked about a few Salt titles on here recently - Rob Mackenzie's The Opposite of Cabbage, Andrew Philip's The Ambulance Box, Shaindel Beers' A Brief History of Time, Sian Hughes' The Missing, and the Salt Companion To Lee Harwood - any one of them would be as good a place as any to start.

JUST ONE BOOK

1. Please buy just one book, right now. We don't mind from where, you can buy it from us or from Amazon, your local shop or megastore, online or offline. If you buy just one book now, you'll help to save Salt. Timing is absolutely everything here. We need cash now to stay afloat. If you love literature, help keep it alive. All it takes is just one book sale. Go to our online store and help us keep going.

UK and International
http://www.saltpublishing.com/shop/index.php

USA
http://www.saltpublishing.com/shop-us/index.php


2. Share this note on your Facebook and MySpace profile. Tell your friends. If we can spread the word about our cash crisis, we can hopefully find more sales and save our literary publishing. Remember it's just one book, that's all it takes to save us. Please do it now.

With my best wishes to everyone,
Chris

Highs and lows

On Wednesday, the gravel pits and reservoirs of central England seemed to be swarming with Black Terns, with the odd Little Tern thrown in for good measure. Unfortunately, commitments of a cricketing nature meant I couldn't get out to look for any of them (one consolation is that our ground is playing host to a Cuckoo this year).

Instead, I got up absurdly early yesterday morning, but was foiled again by mist and fog that made seeing anything difficult. So, on the way home from work yesterday, I tried again, first calling in at some of my regular sites, then working my way along the Trent Valley.

No luck at Trent Valley Pits, although there were huge numbers of Swallows skimming the water, and it was the same story at Aston Gravel Pits, where you have to stand on a concrete block just outside the main entrance, ignore the traffic whizzing past on the A50 just behind you, and crane your neck to see as much of the pits as you can.

Crane your neck. It's playing on my mind, you see. Because when I got to my final stop, Willington Gravel Pits, I met two birders walking down the lane. When I asked them if there was much about, one replied: "Nah, nothing much. We must have just missed the Cranes."

Missed the Cranes!!!!! What Cranes? Well, apparently two had been seen at around 5pm, but it was now 7.30 and they were seemingly long gone.

At this point, I was in two minds as to whether to go home. It had got incredibly dark, and there was a fine, misty rain falling. Cold, too. May isn't supposed to be like this. It's supposed to be all balmy evenings, sitting round with a cold beer, perhaps after watching a lot of obliging migrants dropping into your local site.

I carried on anyway. On the main reserve, there were masses of Black-headed Gulls, a few Common Terns, the usual mixture of ducks, and a sprinkling of Lapwings, Redshanks and Oystercatchers, all looking to settle down to roost for the night, and bickering over the best spots. A little flock of 10 Dunlin flew round and round, just above the water, jinking this way and that at high speed, and occasionally looking to land on one of the gravel spits. They'd come in, lower their legs in anticipation of landing, then pull out at the last moment in reaction to the agitation of the gulls. Finally, they found a quieter spot over near the Redshanks, and that was that.

I walked over to the Canal Pit, and just as I reached it, the clouds cleared slightly, the rain stopped, and the light improved significantly. You're forced to view the birds at a fair old distance, though, so it was quite a challenge picking out anything on the muddy shores, even if the hirundines were a bit more obvious over the actual water.

After about 10 minutes scanning, though, I was able to find three Black-tailed Godwits feeding enthusiastically in one little bay, and nearby was a Wood Sandpiper. Both good local ticks, especially as I've kept missing the occasional godwits that drop in from time to time.

These are one of my favourite waders - very elegant, despite the fact that their long legs and very long bill really ought to make them look a little absurd. The name, if my memory of the Readers Digest Book Of Birds (a much underrated volume) serves me correctly, comes from the Anglo-Saxon 'god wiht', meaning good thing. Meaning good thing on a plate with some veg and gravy, specifically. In fact, they were considered a delicacy until quite recently, and they're still hunted in France, despite the fact that the Western European population is under considerable pressure.

As I was getting back to the car, four Black-tailed Godwits were flying overhead, probably a different group altogether, with their white wing bars showing up well in the fading light.

Later, at home, I was having a read of The Salt Companion To Lee Harwood. One of the essays (I can't remember whose) was talking about Harwood's interest in nature, and quoted him talking about the pleasure he gets from being able to name plants, birds and so on. On the face of it, that sounds like the rage for order that is usually blamed for the British male's passion for spotting and/or collecting things. But in Harwood's poetry, what also comes through, I think, is a constant desire to reassure one's self that the world really is as various, to use Louis MacNeice's phrase, as we hope it is.

Anyway, much more on Harwood very soon. And coming this weekend, reviews of Andrew Philip's The Ambulance Box and Rob Mackenzie's The Opposite Of Cabbage.

Ramblings

Things have been a little quiet here at Polyolbion recently, but it's the calm before the storm, because I've got a whole load of half-written pieces ready to finish and post up.

For starters, there's reviews of Rob A Mackenzie's The Opposite Of Cabbage and Andrew Philip's The Ambulance Box, both from Salt, and both very fine books indeed. I've read and re-read them several times, and keep going back to revise my original thoughts, but I'll get something completed over the bank holiday weekend.

Speaking of my fellow HappenStancers, I'll be reading with Rob, Andrew and James Wood at the Word Power bookshop in Edinburgh, at noon on June 20th, so come along if you can. Edinburgh's always a pleasure, but it'll be great to catch up with the others and talk poetry.

I've also been reading The Salt Companion To Lee Harwood, edited by Robert Sheppard, and Not The Full Story: Six Interviews With Lee Harwood, by Kelvin Corcoran. Harwood's a poet I enjoy a lot, and it's been fun looking deeper into his work with the help of these two books.

And finally, I spent last week on a working trip to the Algarve. The sun shone, and the birding was excellent. Flamingo, Glossy Ibis, Spectacled Warbler, Rock Bunting, Crested Tit, masses of Avocets, Black-winged Stilts, Kentish Plovers and Whimbrels (the latter not a bird I see often over here), loads of Little Terns, and a big fall of migrants at Cape St Vincent, including Golden Oriole, some very smart Pied Flycatchers, and absolutely masses of Spotted Flycatchers.

Oh, and there was a close-range Otter, and a very showy displaying Little Bustard, which I managed to digi-bin. I haven't downloaded and tidied up the pics yet, but I'll post them later. In the meantime, enjoy that gratuitous shot of two Bee-eaters (not mine), just because we saw loads and they're a glorious bird.

I almost forgot. I got home to find that some great rarities had turned up on my local birding patch, so I dashed around yesterday seeing a Pectoral Sandpiper at Cossington Meadows, and two Whiskered Terns at Willington Gravel Pits (there had been eight earlier in the day, but a Peregrine spooked them).

Salt snap up Andrew Philip

Great to hear that Andrew Philip - whose wonderful pamphlet Tonguefire was a standard-bearer for HappenStance - has had his manuscript The Ambulance Box accepted by Salt, for publication next year.

As Andrew says, Salt have a very strong list (I was in Borders this afternoon and was struck by what an eclectic but high-quality range they boast), and are also at the forefront of marketing poetry through the web, the potential of which they've probably only just started to explore

Anyway, it's the first must-buy of 2009 on my list - if you want to know exactly why, have a look on the HappenStance site and get hold of Tonguefire, or the Andrew Philip Sampler, just out. Proof that quality wins out.