New at Nine Arches Press

Angela France's collection Terminarchy is one of Nine Arches' most recent publications, and it's a fine book that explores subjects such as climate change, among others. I've enjoyed Angela's past work, but this takes it on to another level, and I recommend it very highly.

There's plenty more to enjoy at the Nine Arches website, too – have a browse of the collections and anthologies on sale there, and don't forget Under The Radar magazine.

Cannon Poets reading, July 12th

I'll be reading with my fellow Nine Arches poet, Angela France, at Cannon Poets, Moseley, Birmingham, tomorrow night. There will, of course, be an opportunity to buy copies of The Elephant Tests, should you want to.

The reading takes place in the Moseley Exchange, in the Post Office Building, starting at 7.30pm, and as well as the poetry there's music from Flootsweet.

The Elephant Tests reviewed at Stride

Over at the online magazine Stride, which remains one of my most regular browsing places on the net, The Elephant Tests has been reviewed very kindly by Alasdair Paterson - it's always nice to get a good review from someone whose own poetry you like a lot.

Also reviewed are Angela France, Patricia Debney, Richard Skinner, Jennifer Copley, and Ian Brinton & Michael Grant - that's pretty nice company to be in, too. There's a lot of food for thought in this piece, and at least a couple of books to add to the 'To Buy' list.

Maps and Legends launch

Last night saw the official launch of Maps and Legends, the new anthology celebrating five years of Nine Arches Press, at the Library of Birmingham.

Jo Bell compered, and her introductions were poetry in themselves. In particular, she paid fitting tribute to Nine Arches editor Jane Commane, whose tireless work has seen the press go from strength to strength. She's a very active editor, working through manuscripts with poets with great perception, supportiveness and patience, and I know I'm not the only Nine Arches poet who would say that that, above all, is what makes being published by the press such an honour.

Readings were by Angela France, Daniel Sluman, Maria Taylor, Roz Goddard, Myra Connell, Deborah Tyler-Bennett, David Morley and myself, plus Jo and Jane reading the work of David Hart and the much-missed Milorad Krystanovich respectively. It was great to hear so many fine poets together, and I think the occasion also brought out some poems that don't always get an airing otherwise. In keeping with the book's theme, I read Warning Against Using These Poems As A Map, plus Watching Woodcocks (well, once Jo had teased the appreciative audience with the clitoris reference, I felt I couldn't let them down). We adjourned to the Prince of Wales for a swift one afterwards - I only wish it had been longer.

Finally, a word about the library itself. What a glorious building! I'd seen a lot of it on the regional news, but I was still taken aback by just how big it is, and it looks fantastic, inside and out (especially at the moment, with the surrounding square and streets lit up for Christmas). It is, I suspect, the only reading I'll ever give/hear in which a huge illuminated ferris wheel is the backdrop to the readers. Birmingham has always had a lot of fine civic buildings, and this one is a more than worthy addition.

Oh, and one more thing. The anthology is priced just £10.99, and you can find full details here.

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.

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.

Sneak preview

My new poetry collection, The Elephant Tests, is out from Nine Arches Press next month. You can read more about it here, and as with all Nine Arches titles you'll be able to buy it from the Inpress Online Shop. Recent additions to those titles include Angela France's Hide, Chris McCabe and Jeremy Reed's Whitehall Jackals, and Mario Petrucci's anima - I haven't seen the last of those yet, but I can recommend the other two very highly.

Nine Arches Poetry Rodeo

I'm reading at the Cheltenham Poetry Festival on Saturday, as part of the Nine Arches Poetry Rodeo. It takes place from 2pm at Copa (admission is £5/£4), and involves two Gloucestershire-based Nine Arches poets, Daniel Sluman and Angela France, taking turns in an exchange of poems with myself and fellow Leicestershire poet Maria Taylor.

You can also hear Maria a little earlier at this, and I highly recommend that you do - her own book Melanchrini is superb, and her husband Jonathan will be reading from his new collection Musicolepsy.

There's lots, lots more too - the full programme for Saturday (and the rest of the festival) is here.

The uninvited guest

You know an open mic night is beginning to make a name for itself when Ezra Pound makes an unscheduled appearance, and refuses to sit down.

The father of modernist poetry/great man/mad old fascist, as he was variously described by readers (and the three are, of course, not mutually exclusive), first cropped up in Robert Richardson’s open mic slot at last night’s Shindig in Leicester (he read three short poems by Pound). And, as seems to be the way with these nights, and with all good open mic nights for that matter, other readers responded by reading his work too, or by reading work informed by or influenced by Pound.

Such themes and tropes have a habit of turning up, as Jane Commane of Nine Arches Press pointed out, but uninvited or not, they’re ultimately welcome, giving the evening something to coalesce around, or work against, on occasion.

Some of my highlights among last night’s open mic-ers included Charles Lauder Jr’s poem The Rocking Chair Thief (think that’s the right title), Kerry Featherstone’s two pieces, Gary Carr (incidentally, here’s the terrific poem he read at the last Shindig) and Graham Norman’s short, taut poems themed around the canonical hours, but in truth there was barely a dud note all night.

The same was true of the featured readers. I’ve blogged previously about Angela France and Daniel Sluman, who made up the Nine Arches half of the bill – both are fine poets who also read well. Angela’s newer work (due to appear in a book from Nine Arches early next year) is intriguingly different from her earlier pamphlet and collection – much more personal and direct. I particularly liked the piece she read about family superstitions.

Daniel read, as ever, with great poise. There’s a contrast between the often difficult subject matter of his poems (the loss of a leg to cancer, troubled relationships, and last night, abuse) and the relaxed and witty introductions that works well, but he’s not a poet to settle for the easy laugh. I could say a lot more, but I want to keep my powder dry for the review of his book that I’ll post soon, especially as two of the poems he read last night are two that I focus on.

In the second half, Sarah Jackson read well from her Bloodaxe collection Pelt. I heard her read in Nottingham a couple of years back, but the newer work was the highlight for me.

Rory Waterman closed the night, with poems from his debut collection from Carcanet (due around this time next year). I knew some of them already, having seen his work in Carcanet’s New Poetries V, but there was an awful lot to enjoy right across the board – the creeping sense of menace in his American-set poem was great. I think it was probably a more rounded selection of his work than appears in New Poetries V, good as that is, and it augured well for that collection next year. 

September Shindig

Next Monday (September 17th) it's the latest Nine Arches Press/Crystal Clear Creators Shindig! at The Western, Western Road, Leicester.

Featured poets are Angela France, Daniel Sluman, Sarah Jackson and Rory Waterman, and as always, you can sign up on the door for the open mic slots. Entry is free.

Cannon Poets 14.7.12

Saturday night meant a short trip down the M42 to read at the Cannon Poets event at the Moseley Festival. Moseley Exchange was a nice venue, for starters, right in the middle of the village suburb, and there was a good-sized audience.

Cannon Poets is a group with a long and distinguished history, and in the first half of the evening we heard recent work from some of its members. There was a lot to like - a particular highlight for me was the poem on dust (I'll check the names when I get home and edit it in here). Rich McMahon's Irish-tinged folk was splendid, too, although he was a hard act to follow.

I read straight after the interval, and surprised myself by almost getting through a set without a bird poem (one zipped in there just before the end). It wasn't intentional, and I don't suppose it'll happen too often again.

Fellow Nine Arches poets Daniel Sluman and Angela France completed the line-up. Daniel read from his debut collection, Absence has a weight of its own. There's a raw passion, ferocity even, to his poems, whether they're dealing with physical or emotional injury and trauma, but it's handled with great assurance throughout. The book's every bit as good as the reading led me to expect, which is saying something (I'll post more on it at a later date).

Angela France has a collection forthcoming from Nine Arches next year, and I found the poems from it that she read at the end of her set were an intriguing departure from her past work - more directly personal, for a start, less rooted in stories. They worked well, though, and it'll be a collection worth waiting for.

The audience was appreciative, talkative after the readings, and plenty of books seemed to be changing hands. Hard to ask for more than that.

Readings

Just a quick reminder that I'll be reading, with fellow Nine Arches poets Angela France and Daniel Sluman, at the Cannon Poets event at Moseley Exchange, Alcester Road, Birmingham, tomorrow from 7.30pm. It's part of the Moseley Festival.

On Monday, Nine Arches and Crystal Clear Creators team up for the bi-monthly Shindig at The Western, Western Road, Leicester, from 7.30pm. Featured readers are Robin Vaughan-Williams, Maria Taylor, Kim Moore and Alan Baker, and as usual open mic slots will be available on the night.

Reading at Moseley

I'm going to be reading along with fellow Nine Arches poets Angela France and Daniel Sluman at the Moseley Exchange, Birmingham, at 7pm on July 14th. The event, presented by Cannon Poets, is part of the Moseley Festival, and admission is £2.

Keeping busy

I spent the weekend zipping up and down the M42, or rather down and up.

On Saturday, I was at the Pow Wow Litfest 2011, at the Prince of Wales, Moseley, Birmingham, for a reading. It's a terrific venue - an old-fashioned and roomy pub with a good beer garden - and there was an excellent audience for the various performances (I particularly liked the capoeira demonstration).

Joel Lane also went down well, reading one of the pieces from his new Nine Arches Press short story chapbook Do Not Pass Go, as well as a number of poems that built on some of the themes from his last poetry collection, The Autumn Myth.

I had to leave earlier than I'd have liked, but the organisers ought to be proud of such a wide-ranging and well-attended event.

Yesterday, I headed north instead, for the latest LeftLion/Nine Arches Shindig, at the Jam Cafe in Nottingham. It's a superb venue, too, just about the perfect size and comfortable, and as ever the open mic readers were very varied and pretty much uniformly excellent. Wayne Burrows' poem, Zeropolis (I might have got that wrong) was a highlight for me, and Aly Stoneman's The General's Horse, but there was plenty more to enjoy. I read a couple of poems - Azul, and a new (I wrote it on Friday) untitled one that takes its lead from a line from The Sopranos (from Patsy Parisi, in fact), and they seemed to go down well.

Joel Lane again read well, and I bought his chapbook. I've only had time to read the first story so far, but it's excellent - noir-ish crime stories with a West Midlands setting.

Angela France's reading, from her new Nine Arches chapbook Lessons In Mallemaroking, highlighted all her poetry's strengths. She's interested in seeing where unusual words or phrases take her, and in creating back stories to them. She's also, I'm pretty sure, the only poet ever published in the Sunday Sport - the poem in question, Hide And Seek Champion Found Dead In Cupboard - was a highlight here.

Tom Warner already has a really fine chapbook out as part of the Faber New Poets series, but his reading also suggested that there are great things to come. He was back on home turf, effectively (he lives in Norwich, but is from Mansfield originally), and poems that touched on subjects such as the Miners' Strike struck plenty of chords, especially after last week's tragedy in South Wales. I wish I'd had longer to talk to him afterwards, but I'll be keeping an eye out for future work from him.

It was a lovely way to round off the weekend, anyway - the carrot cake and Bundaberg ginger beer helped, too.

Nottingham Shindig

Angela France, Tom Warner and Joel Lane are the guest readers at the next Nine Arches Press & LeftLion Shindig, at the Jam Cafe in Nottingham, a week on Sunday (September 18th).

Angela France's second collection, Occupation, is available from Ragged Raven Press, she's the features editor of Iota and an editor of ezine The Shit Creek Review, as well as running Cheltenham's excellent monthly poetry café, Buzzwords. She'll be launching her Nine Arches chapbook, Lessons In Mallemaroking.

I met Tom Warner at a reading in Norwich a couple of years ago, and subsequently read and enjoyed as much of his work as I could find. Born in Mansfield in 1979, he won an Eric Gregory Award in 2001 and graduated from the University of East Anglia’s Creative Writing MA with a Distinction. His poetry has appeared in a number of publications and magazines, including The Rialto and Stand, and in 2009-10 he was Poet in Residence for Newark-on-Trent. He currently lives in Norwich where he teaches creative writing.

Joel Lane lives in Birmingham and works as a journalist. He is the author of two novels, three collections of short stories, a novella, a chapbook, and three collections of poetry, the most recent of which is The Autumn Myth (Arc), which I enjoyed a great deal. His latest publication is Do Not Pass Go – a collection of crime stories as part of Nine Arches' new Hotwire short-story pamphlet series.

It all starts at 7.30pm, entry is free, and you can sign up for the open mic on the door.

Last night's Shindig

Last night's Nine Arches Press Shindig at The Western in Leicester was the usual entertaining and thought-provoking mixture of open mic and featured readings.

After I'd managed to get through my set without dissolving into a fit of coughing (I seem to manage to catch a heavy cold a couple of days before all my readings now) Deborah Tyler-Bennett read from her new Nine Arches chapbook, Mytton...Dyer...Sweet Billy Gibson, as well as from other recent collections (including the excellent Pavilion). There's always a terrific stripped-down energy to her poems, and she always reads well too. I enjoyed her set a lot, and I've been enjoying the book this evening.

The second half, hosted by Crystal Clear Creators, featured a hugely entertaining short story from Alex Plasatis, and a set from Leicester poet Roy Marshall, who has a pamphlet forthcoming from CCC. His poems are compact and poised, packing an awful lot into very few lines. I'll look forward to seeing his collection.

In between times, in the open mic spots, Gary Longden's paean to Rebekah Brooks was great, and one of the lines from Mark Goodwin's poem remained bouncing around my head for most of today, but all the readers were of a reliably high standard. What I also find really interesting is how certain ideas and themes emerge during the course of each of these evenings, from a very disparate range of poets.

I also bought Angela France's Nine Arches chapbook Lessons In Mallemaroking, and picked up a copy of Tony Williams' extraordinary All The Rooms Of Uncle's Head for review. Lots of reading ahead - looking forward to my week off from Monday. 

Oh, and as usual, my set:

Zugunruhe

Things Left In Hotel Rooms

Coolidge

1984

Black-throated Diver, Lochindorb

Summer Breeze

Gossamer

Untitled

New at Nine Arches

There are plenty of new publications worth looking at over at the Nine Arches Press website - poetry from Tony Williams, Angela France and Deborah Tyler-Bennett, and crime stories from Joel Lane, for starters.

You can read extracts from each of the poetry books by clicking on the cover then following the link in the sidebar. That includes hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica - click on the link to read more, or to buy.

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