David Kennedy (editor): Necessary Steps Click on covers for more information, where available.
Published
2007. Paperback, 192pp, 9x6ins £12.95 / $23.
ISBN 9781905700639
A collection of essays, several of which previously appeared in David Kennnedy’s magazine The Paper, revolving around poetry, walking, elegy and the spiritual. Contributors are Andrea Brady, Ian Davidson & Zoë Skoulding, John Hall, Sarah Law, Jennifer Moxley, Stuart Mugridge, Jeremy Noel-Tod, Malcolm Phillips, Peter Riley, Michael Symmons Roberts, Josh Robinson, Jane Routh, Penelope Shuttle, Lawrence Upton and Stephen Vincent.
Alfred Kolleritsch: Selected Poems
Translated from German by Iain Galbraith
Published 2007. Paperback, 100pp, 8.5x5.5ins, £8.95 / $15.
ISBN 9781905700301
The first English-language survey of Austrian poet Alfred Kolleritsch's work. Kolleritsch is the doyen of the Graz literary scene, and editor of the indispensable magazine manuskripte, for decades one of the major German-language literary/poetic journals.
Zbigniew Kotowicz: Fernando Pessoa – Voices of a Nomadic Soul
Published
July 2008. Paperback, 116pp, 8.5x5.5ins, £9.95 / $17
ISBN 9781905700318
A second, revised edition of the Menard volume from 1996, with an updated bibliography. Zbigniew Kotowicz's study of Pessoa was the first extended treatment of Pessoa's poetry in English, and it remains an important volume, offering anglophone readers a path into the complexities of the poet's work. Uniform in design with the rest of the Shearsman Pessoa series, this volume also features portrait drawings—and a cover painting—of Pessoa by the English artist Aldous Eveleigh.
Nancy Kuhl: The Wife of the Left Hand
Published
2007. Paperback, 80pp, 8.5x5.5ins, £8.95 / $15.
ISBN 9781905700066
In her first full-length collection of poems, The Wife of the Left Hand, the poet Nancy Kuhl explores the lyric possibilities found within the sometimes narrow space of the domestic interior, caught between the quotidian and the uncanny. In language that is by turns sensual and spare, elegant and oneiric, the images and music of this collection reveal and recast the daily ambiguities of living with others, "the fragile arrangement all blue / at the seams," and the uncertain line between the hidden and the apparent, like a "house / with its unswerving spine exposed."
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R.F. Langley: Journals
Published
2006. 9x6ins, 144pp. £9.95 / $17.
ISBN 9781905700004
R.F. Langley's Collected Poems (Carcanet Press, 2000) was one of the poetic highlights of recent times, showing a sometimes sceptical public that a contemporary poet could still engage with the shades of Modernism and produce fascinating and original work. Throughout his life, the author has been maintaining a journal, which is part diary, part autobiography and part commonplace book; some extracts from these fascinating volumes have been appearing in P N Review since 2002. This book offers a number of selections, ranging in time from 1970 to 2005, which will give admirers of his poetry a clearer idea of the author's other writings, which run in parallel with his poetry and sometimes provide the underpinnings for it. Download a sample PDF from this book here
Peter Larkin: Leaves of Field
Published
2006. 8x5ins, 116pp. £8.95 / $15.
ISBN 9780907562979
Leaves of Field contains three long sequences: the title poem, plus 'Open Woods' and 'Moving Woods', which together represent Peter Larkin's most recent forays into the eco-poetic field that he has made very much his own. This is a poetry that is both radical and luminous, blending scientific discourse with more expected poetic approaches. To write about nature in the contemporary world it is no longer possible to admire it from afar. In these poems nature is examined at an almost microscopic level, seen from within.
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Sarah Law: Perihelion
Published
2006. 8.5x5.5ins, 116pp. £8.95 / $15.
ISBN 9780907562825
Prepare for some adventures in Perihelion. These poems evoke shifting states of mind and heart, from childhood terrors to the wisdom of the mystic, with all the twists of love, doubt and insight which come in between. There are monsters in this collection (but are they generated by science-fiction or the psyche?); there is grace, there is art, and there is longing. In her writing, Sarah Law traces the dynamics of relationship and of solitude, pushing lyric poetry to a playful complexity, but allowing the poignancy of our human condition to flow through each poem. Perihelion is Sarah Law's third collection.
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Karin Lessing: The Winter Dream Journals
Published 1991. A5 Paperback, 40pp. £5.00 / $9.95.
ISBN 9780907562801
The second full-length collection by this woefully under-recognised expatriate American poet, following on from her early Montemora collection, The Fountain (1982).
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Karin Lessing: In the Aviary of Voices
Published 2001. A5 Paperback, 62pp. £ 6.50 / $9.
ISBN 9780907562313
In the Aviary of Voices is Karen Lessing's third full-length collection, and her first for ten years.
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Emma Lew: Anything the Landlord Touches
Published
April 2006. 8.5"x5.5", 80pp. £ 8.95 / $15.
ISBN 9780907562924
First published in Australia by Giramondo Publishing of Sydney, this collection won two prestigious awards – the 2003 C.J. Dennis Award (the Victorian Premier's Prize for Poetry) and the Judith Wright Calanthe Award (the Queensland Premier's Prize for Poetry). The author's second collection, Anything the Landlord Touches is a tour-de-force full of extraordinary visions.
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Gerry Loose: Printed on Water — New & Selected Poems
Published
2007. Paperback, 144pp, 8.5x5.5ins, £9.95 / $17.
ISBN 9781905700073
A timely retrospective of a Glasgow poet, whose work should be better known outside Scotland. A mixture of ecology, politics, and meditation make these poems very much of our time. The book selects from 30 years of work.
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Pura López-Colomé: Aurora
Translated
from Spanish by Jason Stumpf
Published 2007. Paperback, 112pp, 8.5x5.5ins, £8.95 / $15.
ISBN 9781905700387
Aurora was first published in Mexico City in 1994 by Ediciones Equilibrista, and was the author's third full-length collection. Her entire output has since been collected in Mexico in a single volume Música inaudita.
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Tony Lopez & Anthony Caleshu (editors): Poetry and Public Language
Published
2007. Paperback, 320pp, 9x6ins £15.95 / $26.
ISBN-13 9781905700646; ISBN-10 1905700644
A collection of essays and papers delivered at the University of Plymouth’s eponymous conference in April 2007. Contributors include Lyn Hejinian, Barrett Watten, Allen Fisher, Richard Kerridge, Peter Middleton, Robert Hampson, William Rowe, Andrea Brady, Robert Sheppard, Ian Davidson, Carrie Etter, Scott Thurston, Ian Davidson, Philip Terry and several others.
Tom Lowenstein: Ancestors and Species. New & Selected Ethnographic Poetry
Published
2005. Paperback, 9x6ins,
152pp, £9.95
/ $176.
ISBN 9780907562740
Tom Lowenstein's work as poet and as ethnographer (specialising, above all, in the Inuit of Alaska) has always been interpenetrative, the poetic work deeply informed by the scholarly. This volume selects poetry from his whole career to date, concentrating on the faultline where his ethnographic concerns meet his poetic concerns. Ancestors and Species makes it clear that Tom Lowenstein is one of Britain's most remarkable poetic voices, fascinating and impossible to categorise.
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Rupert M Loydell: An Experiment in Navigation
Published
2008. Paperback, 148pp, 8.5x5.5ins, £10.95 / $18.50; ISBN 9781905700943
Rupert Loydell's second Shearsman collection is another large compendium of his many-faceted experimental writing.
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More than ever, Rupert Loydell's new book An Experiment in Navigation reminds me that he is a painter. By which I don't mean that his writing is primarily visual, but that he rejoices in discovering what his medium is capable of. (Jane Routh)
Loydell renders with equal deftness the plainsong of direct statement and melodious phrasal waves of speech. While he acknowledges that it is ". . . easier to map out fictions and wallow in distant clouds that deal with linear time", Loydell gives terra firma its full due. His work displays engagement with the figurative "folded pocket map". (Sheila E. Murphy)
Rupert M. Loydell: A Conference of Voices
Published
2004. Paperback, 9x6ins, 137pp, £9.95
/ $17.
ISBN 9780907562566
The latest collection by this energetic poet-artist-editor-publisher, whose poetic voice is one that has to be reckoned with in the new century. Rupert Loydell is editor of Stride and publisher of Stride Books. Conference includes two full collections: one, the title collection, which concentrates on his more lyrical voice, and the second, Multiple Exposure, which is devoted to a more experimental turn of work.
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Jill Magi: Torchwood
Published
2008. Paperback, 88pp, 8.5x5.5ins, £8.95 / $15
ISBN 9781905700547
A second collection, and first from Shearsman, by this Brooklyn-based poet, artist and small-press publisher.
While Torchwood documents the loss of a religion and at times, the loss of language, it gathers hope as it goes. The mostly serial works in this collection explore the possibility of faith in humanity — colleagues, classmates, strangers, lovers — attempting a language of clear-seeing and shared spirit. A poetry of inner and outer worlds, of the diary and of the subway, Torchwood moves between the sentence and its trust in storytelling, and the fragment — evidence of the need to create silence in order to tell. Download a sample PDF from this book here
Mai Cheng: Selected Poems
Published
2008. Paperback, 140pp, 9x6ins, £9.95 / $17
ISBN 9781905700882
A bilingual (English & Chinese) collection by Dalian-based poet-editor, Mai Cheng. This is his first collection to be made available in translation.
Phil Maillard: Sweet Dust & Growling Lambs
Published
September 2008. Paperback, 148pp, 8.5x5.5ins, £9.95 / $17
ISBN 9781905700837
"Looking at this collection, Sweet Dust And Growling Lambs, I think I can perceive a few recurrent themes. The first relates to mythology, in a broad, story-telling kind of fashion. Of recent years, 'myths' have been regarded as universal, because archetypal, repositories of human experience. From there, it's a short step to the idea of 'fusion', of combining elements from different cultures in a single work. This is most familiar in music. In my poem The 'Confession' Of Gerald, for example, the Celtic story of Elidorus and his meeting with the fairy folk is developed by way of a Buddhist teaching story." (Phil Maillard)
Stéphane Mallarmé: Sonnets
Published
July 2008. Paperback, 128pp, 8.5x5.5ins, £9.95 / $17
ISBN 9781905700424
Translated by David Scott
A fully bilingual edition of Mallarmé's Sonnets, with introduction and notes designed for the undergraduate. An ideal way to find one's way into Mallarmé's engagement with this particular form.
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D.S. Marriott: Hoodoo Voodoo
Published
May 2008. Paperback, 140pp, 9x6 ins, £9.95 / $17.00
ISBN 9781905700790
D.S. Marriott's second collection, and first with Shearsman. With an introduction by Romana Huk, in which she says:
"D.S. Marriott 'dares to dream' in this book . . . by refolding beautiful
romantic lines . . . into new relation with the real that haunts him, which
he attends through mourning and recasts in an art full of loss. These poems
do indeed seem to 'contain the whole of death, even before / life has begun',
but they engage no refusal, just the overturning of willful stasis and a
lyric luring of the undone into poetic doing, to light. Hoodoo Voodoo's last
section's dark streaming of figures through landscapes . . .
I'm overwhelmed by the beauty that is this book." Download
a sample from this book to your desktop.
Deborah Meadows: involutia
Published
2007. Paperback, 84pp, 8.5x5.5ins, £8.95 / $15.
ISBN 9781905700196
Deborah Meadows' fourth collection is a rigorous and spellbinding series of poems: innovative, experimental, and featuring such unexpected collisions as Luce Irigaray & Gilles Deleuze encountering zen philosophy.
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Victor Manuel Mendiola: Selected Poems
Published
June 2008. Paperback, 112pp, 8.5x5.5ins, £8.95 / $15
ISBN 9781905700899
Translated by Ruth Fainlight, Jennifer Clement and others.
This is the first collection in the UK for Mexican poet Victor Manuel Mendiola, although his work has been appearing in small-press editions, in others' collections and in journals for some time. His collected poems Tan oro y ogro (1987–2002) (UNAM, Mexico City) won New York's Premio Latino de Literatura (Latino Literature Prize) in 2005. This Selected shows the full range of his work, but begins with his astonishing erotic long poem 'Tu Mano Mi Boca' (Your Hand, My Mouth), which was so well received in Ruth Fainlight's translation when it was included in her latest collection of poems.
George Messo: Entrances
Published
2006. Paperback 8x5ins, 83pp, £8.95
/ $15.
ISBN 9780907562900
The author's second collection, Entrances is a remarkable follow-up to the highly-praised debut collection, From the Pine Observatory. As Peter Didsbury says of it: "It seems to me that Messo is somehow bringing a whole region and set of cultures back into the European sphere. Any book which so beautifully invents for us the Choruh River and eleventh-centry Georgia is OK by me."
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Christopher Middleton: Palavers & A Nocturnal Journal
Published
2004. Paperback, 151pp, 9x6ins. £9.95 / $17.
ISBN 9780907562511
Christopher Middleton is one of the finest living British poets and this volume presents the voice of the man behind a remarkable body of work, firstly talking to poet Marius Kociejowski, and then talking to himself – 18 months' worth of journal entries from the late 1990s, in which he muses on matters poetic, social, political. The book also includes an essay-memoir by Marius Kociejowski that traces the growth of his fascination with Middleton's art.
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David Miller: The Waters of Marah. Selected Prose 1973-1995
Published
2005. Paperback, 113pp, 8.5x 5.5ins. £8.95. Not
for sale in North America.
ISBN 9780907562665
The Waters of Marah brings together the best of David Miller's non-poetic output. The prose here however does include work that would be classified as prose-poetry in most quarters, as well as the longer work Tesserae which could be better described as experimental fiction. These pieces tend also to have verse interludes, which further confuses the definition of what category they actually belong to. In the end however, categories are irrelevant, and the work can be read on its own terms, be it prose, be it prose-poetry, be it fiction, be it poetry. This is musical work that explores the parameters of the sayable in a manner that does not repel the reader but rather draws him/her in as a participant in a remarkable enterprise.
Billy Mills: Five Easy Pieces
Published 1997. A5 Paperback, 32pp. £4.50.
ISBN 9780907562221
Five Easy Pieces provides a very accessible opening into Mills' work, with all of his main themes and devices present: the found text, the expressive use of space on the page, the landscape as source and record, the personal lyric . . . (Randolph Healy, Orbis).
Billy Mills lives in Limerick, Ireland, and runs hardPressed Poetry.
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John Muckle: Firewriting and other poems
Published
2005. Paperback, 130pp, 9x6ins. Out of print.
ISBN 9780907562641
This first collection of John Muckle's poetry, written 1998-2004, begins with a sequence about working in Care Homes, continues with poems whose literary subject matter ranges from Nathaniel Hawthorne to Coleridge and Philip K. Dick, reflections on life, love and politics, and closes with 'Firewriting', a long poem which imagines that German-Jewish writer Walter Benjamin managed to escape over the Franco-Spanish border in 1940 and has ended up in contemporary London.
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