Welcome to Shearsman
Shearsman Books is a very active publisher of new poetry, mostly from Britain and the USA, but also with an active translation list. Founded in 1981 as a magazine, with some occasional chapbooks. the press has grown rapidly in recent years. 2011 will see our 30th anniversary, as well as a rather more painful one for the publisher, and we hope to organise some events during that year to mark the milestone, in London and elsewhere. Watch this space later in 2010 for more on this subject.
Shearsman published some 60 new titles in each of 2008 and 2009, and will issue roughly the same number in 2010. Recent publications, shown right, include (from top down) books by Brandel France de Bravo (editor of Mexican Poetry Today), Mervyn Taylor, Alan Wall, María Baranda (translated by Joshua Edwards) and Anne Gorrick. Below you will see the covers for Steve Spence's A Curious Shipwreck — recently shortlisted for this year's Forward Prize for Best First Collection — and one of this year's Shearsman Classics: The Phoenix Nest (1593). For access to detailed catalogues and stocklists in PDF form, covering all titles through to mid 2010, click on the last-but-one button in the menu to your left.
There are PDF sampler files of almost all of the books published by Shearsman available on this site; these may be accessed by going to the books home page, where you should then click on the publication years, or the online catalogue pages, in the menu. The only books not to have samplers are out of print books, those with copyright restrictions, or those which are not yet ready for publication. We aim to keep pace with new publications from now on, making samplers available as soon as approved texts are available. There are also PDF downloads available of all issues of the magazine from 50 through to 83/84; most of these offer some 50% of the print issue. In a recent overhaul of the magazine area of this site, all webpages containing texts from back issues have been scrapped, together with old review pages. The only way to see back issues now is through PDF downloads from this page. New issues will be added to the download list when they are about 6 months old.
E-books are also available for free download, including titles by Virgilio Piñera (tr. Mark Weiss), Geoffrey Squires, Ken Edwards and Rodney Nelson—just click on the e-books link to your left. We have several new e-books under preparation for publication before the end of September 2010. The Gallery contains poetry and visual work: the most recent publication there is Waddenzee by Kate Ashton & Gerrit Offringa, and more such exhibits are in preparation.
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A note on copyright
The copyright in all texts published on this website remains with the authors. Copyright for the overall selection and presentation remains with Shearsman Books Ltd. Readers are requested to respect copyright ownership and to request permission for further use of the texts if this is intended. Copying or downloading of the texts is however permitted for the reader's personal use.
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