Litfest
Mark Griffiths whom we published in Watermark (Flax002) has a new collection of poetry out. In his new guise as Fernado Smith comes “Welcome to the Golden Life” published by Searle Publishing.
Copies are available now via The Poetry Bookcase, price £9.99, and Fernando has kindly supplied us with a couple of signed copies too! Yay!
The postman delivered us some shiny, lovely new poetry pamphlets for The Poetry Bookcase today. They came from Shadowtrain editor and Flax writer Ian Seed.
In his accompanying note, Ian tells us that ‘the straw which comes apart’, is his translations of the Italian poet, Ivano Fermini. The pamphlet is published by Oystercatcher Press, winners of the Michael Marks Publishers’ Award for Outstanding UK publisher of poetry in pamphlet form.
‘the straw which comes apart’ is priced £4.00and is available now from The Poetry Bookcase in The Storey.
And here is a sample from it:
carnival
on the horizon not even
was I mute but you held the pearls
and they gather around a thunderclap
the small eagle will carry the rags
sea
I haven’t added up the waves
only fire with eyes the headstones
passing among men
the tears with a great rise and fall
On 24th April the You Are Here show rolled up to Litfest for an evening of quality live poetry. The show was directed by Jaybird (Julia Bird of the Poetry School) and featured an all-star cast. Faber poets Daljit Nagra and Jo Shapcott joined Colette Bryce, Editor of Poetry London, to read from a selection of their more autobiographical work. 
It was extremely well-received. There was clear chemistry between the poets, who worked well together, occasionally joining in to form a kind of chorus for each other’s poems. Colette Bryce read principally from her latest collection “Self Portrait in the Dark” (Picador) and her delivery and distinctive accent in the Storey Auditorium injected new life into her poems. Daljit Nagra read from his collection “Look We Have Coming to Dover!” switching between accents in what has become a trademark reading style. It was also great to hear a wide selection of poems from Jo Shapcott, including work from her forthcoming collection, which will be out through Faber later this year. Shapcott also read some of her distinctive Mad Cow poems and her National Poetry Competition winning poem “Phrase Book”, which for me was the best moment of the night.
Another lovely box of poetry books arrived in the Poetry Bookcase today from another new publisher.
Templar Poetry produce some beautifully bound and presented volumes and have some fine names on their list, including two of our local poets Mike Barlow and Jane Routh.
Along with the books came news also of the Templar Poetry Pamphlet & Collection Competition 2010. Judged by Pat Winslow, the closing date is May 8th 2010.
Our lovely Poetry Bookcase is slowly growing its stock, and we have recently added new stock from 2 more independent poetry presses.
Seren Books, based in Bridgend, South Wales, has been publishing great poetry for over 25 years and aims “to give voice to outstanding writing in the English language from Wales”.
Flipped Eye publishing was founded in 2001 and is dedicated “to publishing great and affordable fiction and poetry”. Flipped Eye has won awards from the Poetry Book Society and was shortlisted for an Independent Publishers Guild Award in 2007.
Books from both publishers are now in stock at the Poetry Bookcase and are well worth a browse. Authors include Owen Sheers, Peter Finch, Carol Rumens (all Seren) and Ainsley Burrows, Jacob Sam-La Rose and Nii Ayikwei Parkes (Flipped Eye).
And if you haven’t discovered the Poetry Bookcase yet, now would be a good time to make that acquaintance.
Anyone who has called into the Litfest offices recently could not have done so without noticing our lovely book towers which flank the entrance. The books were very kindly donated by the International Aid Bookshop in Morecambe’s West End, and created for us by local sculptor Sam Jones.
And recently we highlighted another use for your old, unwanted books when we launched the Bookcrossing point in the NICE Bar at The Storey Creative Industries Centre.
And now another, and rather lovely method for recycling your old novels and dusty tomes has come to our attention.
Why not turn them into handbags? Sounds like a crazt idea we knopw, but if you’re handy with a sewing machine and have a few attractive book covers lying around, you could create something to be the envy of all your book-loving pals. Here’s a few we came across on Etsy…
Or if that doesn’t quite do it for you, how about a book shelf made from books?
Oh, if only there was more time in the world…
Earlier this year it was announced that the Lancaster poet and writing teacher Elizabeth Burns won the first Michael Marks Award for Poetry Pamphlets for her collection, The Shortest Days.
The £5,000 prize was set up to highlight how effective pamphlets – defined in this case as a booklet of up to 36 pages – can be in introducing new poetry to readers. The Shortest days may only be 12 pages long, but was praised by the judges for it’s use of “a limited, light palette, which creates special, lyrical effects, particularly with her use of snow, and the colour white… this is gradually layered across the book, and all the judges felt that the play of light over the whole book was really very moving. It combines skill and direct engagement with the reader.”
“The Shortest Days” is published by Galdragon Press. The initial print run has already sold out, and the pamphlet is currently listed as being out of print, but luckily the Poetry Bookcase has copies still available. Act quick to get your copy.
TWIN is a new bi-annual art and fashion magazine, “substance over surface is our motto” they say, and we were delighted to find in issue one (out now!), a poetry portfolio curated by the new Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy.
It gets better though because Carol Ann Duffy’s choice includes our very own (though sadly recently departed) Litfest Projects Manager Catherine Sadler, selected as one of 3 poets to watch out for.
Yay! Well done Catherine!
And let’s not stop there because, we should also congratulate Lancaster’s own Carole Coates, also selected in the portfolio. Carole read at this year’s Litfest09 when we held a launch event for the new Poetry Bookcase. Carole’s second collection of poems “Looking Good” was recently published by Shoestring Press and is available to buy from the Litfest Poetry Bookcase, along with her first collection The Goodbye Edition.
£8.95
£8.95
Third on Carol Ann’s list is Geraldine Clarkson.
Buy issue 1 of Twin here.
All our lovely flax publications in one place… click on any of the publications to browse it in full.
Congratulations to Kate Pullinger, one of our Litfest09 guests, who has blogged on her site that she was yesterday awarded the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction 2009 for her book The Mistress of Nothing, about the life of a Victorian-era maid.
The Governor Generals Awards are Canada’s highest literary honour.
Apparently Kate charmed guests at the ceremony by announcing that she “suffered from that student disease known as too much fun. I had to drop out. So it’s nice to be back in Montreal under slightly different circumstances.”
Kate also tweeted yesterday that “The Mistress of Nothing has moved from 6000 to 30 on amazon.ca since I won the GG just yesterday!!!!!” Wow! – great news for a great book.
Copies of The Mistress of Nothing are still available from the Litfest Poetry Bookcase in The Storey Creative Industries Centre, priced £10.99
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