Kristy Odelius: Strange Trades Click on covers for more information, where available.
Published
2008. Paperback, 88p, 8.5x5.5ins, £8.95 / $15
ISBN 9781905700844
Strange Trades blends performances of language, verbal play, and narrative fragmentation with more conventional lyric approaches. Exploring the ways that sense is led or revealed via sound-texture, the collection frequently addresses the intellectual, domestic, and perception-based experiences of women. The poet Campbell McGrath has said of Odelius’s work: "In her passionate whimsy she invokes influences from Wallace Stevens to the Robert Desnos praised by her 'Virgins of Chicago’, marvelous creatures who 'who work nights at Federal/Screw Products'. Deft, dry-witted, fabulistic and musical, these are poems to be savored."
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Toby Olson: Darklight
Published
2007. Paperback, 120pp, 8.5x5.5ins, £8.95 / $15.
ISBN 9781905700233
Author of ten novels (among others The Life of Jesus, Seaview and Utah) and over 20 collections of poetry (including We Are the Fire — Selected Poems, and Human Nature, both from New Directions), Toby Olson demonstrates in his new collection that the passage of time has only sharpened his narrative voice. Toby Olson is a story-teller, puckish and avuncular by turns, and this new collection will delight his many admirers.
Toby Olson divides his time between Philadelphia and Cape Cod. Download a sample PDF from this book here.
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Ouyang Yu: Moon over Melbourne & other poems
Published
2005. Paperback, 128pp, 8.5x 5.5ins, £9.95. Not
for sale in North America.
ISBN 9780907562856
Moon over Melbourne is a revised edition of the author's first English-language collection, published in Australia in 1995.
Download a sample PDF from this book here
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Alasdair Paterson On the Governing of Empires
Published
2010. Paperback, 80pp, 8.5x5.5ins, £8.95 / $15
ISBN 9781848611160
Finding Kristallnacht in an optician's chart, flushing heresy from a Michelin guide, procuring princesses courtesy of furnishings catalogues and constructing a guided tour of Bedlam from the names of British moths, Alasdair Paterson brings a Byzantine range of techniques—cut-and-mosaic, palimpsest dialectic, diplomatic transplant and induced mutation—to a series of innocent texts, most without a prior thought of poetry in their heads, to build an indispensible vademecum for the imperially and post-imperially inclined.
Chus Pato: Charenton
Translated
from Galician by Erín Moure
Published 2007. Paperback, 116pp, 8.5x5.5ins, £9.95 / $17
ISBN 9781905700332
Chus Pato is the leading contemporary poet in Galicia. All of her work is written in the Galician language (Galego), but contrary perhaps to one's expectations of work written in what is a minority language, and one also long-repressed, her work is avant-garde, postmodern, and reflects the author's Marxist beliefs as well as her belief in the necessity of independence for Galicia. This is a radical poetry that, despite its remote origins, can speak powerfully across borders and languages.
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Chus Pato: m-Talá
Translated
from Galician by Erín Moure
Published March 2009. Paperback, 8.5x5.5ins. 108pp, £9.95 /
$17
ISBN 9781848610453
In 2000 in Galicia, in a maelstrom of rupture from her previous poetics, well-known poet Chus Pato gave readers a startling new book that instantly demarcated the literary landscape. This book was a reverberative crescendo, a roar and clamour of genres and fictions for the multipled "I" in a time of unspeakable catastrophes: m-Talá.
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Christian Peet: Big American Trip
Published
March 2009. Paperback, 80p, 9x6ins, £8.95 / $15
ISBN 9781848610156
Assuming the form of postcards authored by an "alien" of unknown nationality, ethnicity, and gender, addressing a variety of people and organizations (political figures, multinational corporations, people in public toilets, et al), Big American Trip is a startling document of fear and loneliness in the 21st century U.S. Whether deconstructing road signs, a failed relationship, or the state of contemporary poetry, the voice behind these texts is at once familiar and strange, determined to be free, and desperate to communicate with anyone who has ever felt at odds with the Language of a Nation.
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Simon Perchik: Mr Lucky
Published 1984. A5 centre-stapled, 36pp. £4.00. A few copies still
available.
ISBN 9780907562078
Since reprinted in the author's Collected Poems, Hands Collected (Pavement Saw Press).
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Fernando Pessoa: Selected English Poems
Published
2007. Paperback, 106pp, 8.5x5.5ins, £8.95
/ $15.
ISBN 9781905700264
Pessoa wrote a large number of poems in English, some of them in the guise of early heteronyms (such as Alexander Search and C R Anon) which prove to be fascinating precursors of the later, modernist work in Portuguese. While not the equal of the masterly Caeiro, Campos, Reis or Pessoa-himself, these poems deserve to be better known and at least available in the English-speaking world.
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Fernando Pessoa: Message
Translated from Portuguese by Jonathan Griffin
Published 2007. Paperback, 108pp, 8.5x5.5ins, £8.95 / $15.
ISBN 9781905700271
Pessoa published only one collection of his Portuguese poetry during his lifetime, and then only in 1934, a year before his death: Mensagem (Message). This exquisite collection of apparently patriotic poems hides a deeply symbolic style, where famous figures from Portuguese history and national myth become symbols of the poet's life and quest. A second edition of the collection first published by Menard Press & King's College London in 1992.
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Fernando Pessoa: The Collected Poems of Alberto Caeiro
Translated from Portuguese by Chris Daniels
Published 2007. Paperback, 200pp, 8.5x5.5ins, £11.95 / $20.
ISBN 9781905700240
Translated by Chris Daniels, one of the USA's leading translators of Lusophone poetry. The only integral collection of the Caeiro heteronym in English, this is accompanied by the introductory writings of Ricardo Reis and a memoir by Álvaro de Campos, two of the other major poetic heteronyms, as well as a poem by C. Pacheco, believed to be another one-off heteronym of Pessoa's.
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Fernando Pessoa: The Collected Poems of Álvaro de Campos Vol. 2, 1928–1935
Translated
by Chris Daniels
Published August 2009. Paperback, 9x6ins. 196pp, £12.95 / $20
ISBN 9781905700257
Álvaro de Campos, along with Ricardo Reis and Alberto Caeiro is one of Pessoa's most important poetic heteronyms and, like these fellow fictitious poets, made his first appearance in 1914. He was also something of a public figure, his essays and reviews frequently appearing in Portuguese periodicals. According to Pessoa, Campos was born in the Algarve in 1890, studied naval engineering in Glasgow, was widely travelled, and lived for a number of years in England, working as an engineer. In later life he returned to live in Lisbon. His poetry, especially the earlier work, celebrates the modern world and the machine age, and marks the eruption of futurism into Portuguese poetry.
Fernando Pessoa: Lisbon – What the Tourist Should See
Published
2008. Paperback, 8.5x5.5ins. 84pp. £8.95 / $15.
ISBN 9781905700752
In 1925, Fernando Pessoa wrote a guidebook to Lisbon for English-speaking visitors, and wrote it in English. The typescript was only discovered amongst his papers after his death.
The book is fascinating in that it shows us Pessoa's view of his native city – and Pessoa, as an adult, rarely left Lisbon, and it figures large in his poetry. The book can still be useful to visitors today, given that the majority of the sights described are still to be found.
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Peter Philpott: Textual Possessions
Published
2004. Paperback, 9x6ins,
132pp, £9.95
/ $17.
ISBN 9780907562535
Textual Possessions is the first large collection by Peter Philpott for many years. This volume brings together three long sequences of poems: In the Present Historic Tense, An Encounter Upon the Beach at Minehead With the Prince of This World, and On Being Voiced. Peter Philpott is editor of the online poetry journal Great Works. Download a sample PDF from this book here.
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Peter Philpott: Are we not drawn . . .
Published
2009. Paperback, 112pp, 8.5x5.5ins, £8.95 / $16
ISBN 9781848610248
Are We Not Drawn . . . takes off from a palindrome quoted in Anne Michael's novel, Fugitive Pieces: "Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new era?" Drawn onward; but trapped in repetition and mirroring. The mirrors are now fractured: each line breaks under the strain, as voices and images pour in. Verbal repetitions, starting with the words of the palindrome, give some sorts of paths through, continually evolving and shifting. A work of naïve realism, then, capable of recording how gardenias, Inca mummies and the iron mines of West Somerset determine our days. Just listen to what you are being told . . .
Boris Poplavsky: Flags
Translated
by Belinda Cooke & Richard McKane
Published November 2009. Paperback, ca.142pp, 9x6ins, £9.95 / $17
ISBN 9781848610606
Flags was the only volume of poetry published by the Russian emigré poet Boris Poplavsky (1903–1935) during his own lifetime. A significant Surrealist volume, it is one of the "lost" creations of a man who has been called the greatest of the Russian emigré poets. Now recovered by Russian literary experts and re-edited for a new public, Poplavsky is gaining the readership that eluded him in his lifetime. Unusually, this book presents the complete contents of the original volume (Paris, 1933), rather than presenting a Selected or some other overview, and thus opens a window onto a fascinating and unfairly neglected figure.
Frances Presley: Lines of Sight
Published
October 2009. Paperback, 116pp, 9x6ins, £9.95 / $17
ISBN 9781848610392
Frances Presley's Lines of sight brings together
all her poems from 'Stone settings and longstones', a sequence framed by
the Neolithic stone monuments on Exmoor. The poems reflect the fragile, elusive
and even disputed existence of these sites, as well as the enduring landscape
which surrounds them. They reveal, too, more recent layers of history, and
the creation of new stone settings. The writings of a local woman archaeologist
are also a source of rediscovery and radical realignment. This sequence is
part of a collaboration and performance with Tilla Brading.
Other monuments are engaged with in 'Female figures'.
These are the rare statues of women in public spaces. The figures chosen are
Queen Anne, Margaret Thatcher and Julian of Norwich, along with the spaces
they overlook. The final poetic sequence 'The first book of her life', includes
a meditation on the war experiences of Frances Presley's mother, and creatively
rereads an old Dutch dictionary and primer, in a search for origins of identity
and language.
Frances Presley: Myne: New & Selected Poems & Prose 1976-2005
Published
2006. Paperback, 9x6ins, 200pp, £11.95
/ $20.
ISBN 9780907562535
Myne is a survey of Frances Presley's career to date, as well as a new collection of her poems. It begins with two recent cycles: the title sequence inspired by the Somerset landscape, and 'Stone Settings', which retraces the enigmatic patterns of prehistoric stones on Exmoor. Also here are the entire Somerset Letters, and Linocut, both originally published by Oasis Books, plus substantial selections from the author’s first two books, The Sex of Art and Hula Hoop. Download a sample PDF from this book here.
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Ilma Rakusa: A Farewell to Everything
Translated
by Andrew Shields & Andrew Winnard
Published 2005. Paperback, 100pp, 8x5ins, £9.95 / $17.
ISBN 9780907562771
A Farewell to Everything is a translation of the author's 1997 German collection Ein Strich durch alles (Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt): ninety nine-line poems written over a one-year period. The book is made available thanks to a translation grant from Pro Helvetia, the Swiss Culture Foundation. Ilma Rakusa was born in 1946 in Rimavská Sobota, Slovakia, to a Hungarian mother and a Slovenian father, and spent her childhood in Budapest, Ljubljana and Trieste. She lives in Zürich.
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Elaine Randell: Selected Poems 1970-2005
Published
2006. Paperback, 148pp, 8.5x5.5ins, £9.95 / $17.
ISBN 9780907562719
This volume showcases over 30 years' work by Elaine Randell, a poet whose work has unaccountably drifted from public view these past several years. The Selected Poems demonstrates what we have been missing: a vibrant and original voice in an era too full of poetic clones, and a mixture of lyric poems and decidedly unsettling narative monologues, based on the author's experience of dealing with children at risk.
Download a sample PDF from this book here.
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Elaine Randell Faulty Mothering
Published
2010. Paperback, 80pp, 8.5x5.5ins, £8.95 / $15
ISBN 9781848610897
Faulty Mothering is based on my work with families but focusing on mothers in particular who are experiencing problems in attachment to their children. A backdrop to such difficulties maybe poverty, mental-health problems, substance misuse, adoption, fostering, domestic violence or being poorly parented themselves. I am interested in the capacity of people to change and in the courage of children and young people who adapt and survive adversity. The poems explore those issues. The 'Song Cycles', which make up the rest of the book, come from a call and response, using sentences sometimes written by others in novels which have resonated for me. — Elaine Randell
Tessa Ransford (ed/trans): The Nightingale Question: 5 Poets from Saxony
Published
2004. Paperback, 8.5x5.5ins. 108pp. £8.95 / $15.
ISBN 9780907562528
In the 2002, poet Tessa Ransford and artist Joyce Gunn-Cairns travelled to Leipzig as part of a Scottish Arts Council travel award. While there, Tessa investigated the local poetry scene and translated 5 poets based in Saxony: one in Weimar, one near Dresden and three from Leipzig itself. Joyce sketched portarits of each of the writers and made the portrait photographs that grace the cover of the book. The poets included are Wulf Kirsten. Uta Mauersberger, Andreas Reimann, Thomas Rosenlöcher, Elmar Schenkel and Tessa Ransford herself.
The cover shows photographs of the five poets and the translator, taken by Joyce Gunn-Cairns, copyright © Joyce Gunn-Cairns, 2002.
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Jeremy Reed: Bona Drag
Published
October 2009. Paperback, 128pp, 9x6ins, £9.95 / $17
ISBN 9781848610552
Bona Drag, a rich, brilliantly inventive collection of poems covering every detail of the poet's obsessive life, from the colour of Posh Spice's heels, to London street encounters, underworld friends, urban survival tactics, neuroscientific concepts and extraterrestrials, more than confirms J.G. Ballard's assessment of Reed, as "the most gifted poet working today, an extraordinary talent."
Peter Riley: Alstonefield
Published 1995. A5 Paperback, 32pp. £4.50 / $9.95.
ISBN 9780907562207
Published jointly with Oasis Books, London, this book comprises the first four sections of the long poem Alstonefield. Parts of section 5 subsequently appeared in Shearsman, P N Review and other journals. A new edition, including the complete Section 5 (which is longer than the first four sections put together) was published by Carcanet Press, Manchester, in 2003.
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Peter Riley: Snow Has Settled [...] Bury Me Here
Published 1997. A5 Paperback, 55pp. £6.00 / $9.95.
ISBN 9780907562245
Until the 2007 titles listed below, this was Riley's most recent full-length collection, apart from Passing Measures (Carcanet, Manchester, 2001), which is the author's Selected Poems, the experimental sequence Excavations (Reality Street Editions, 2005), and A Map of Faring, published only in the USA.
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Peter Riley: The Dance at Mociu
Published
2003. Paperback, 119pp, 8x5ins, £8.95 / $15.
ISBN 9780907562368
The Dance at Mociu is a collection of some thirty short prose pieces concerning Transylvania, the area of Romania that Peter Riley and his wife visit every year. Part travel report, part story, part epiphany, these luminous pieces cast light onto a mysterious area of 'Old Europe' where clashing empires and ever-changing borders ensured that nothing remained stable but the old traditions and wonderful music.
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Peter Riley: The Llyn Writings
Published 2007. Paperback, 124pp, 8.5x5.5ins, £8.95 / $15.
ISBN 9781905700158
Since the 1970s, Peter Riley and his wife have been making regular trips to the Llyn Peninsula in North Wales, and he has been writing a series of poems and meditations about the place—a spectacular area of natural beauty. To date, many of these poems, and poem-sequences, have appeared in small-press and bibliophile editions, and in artists' books. Three of the sequences were also collected in the author's Selected Poems, Passing Measures, published by Carcanet in 2000. Now, for the first time, all of Peter Riley's Llyn writings—both poems and prose-poems—are collected together under one set of covers. Download a sample PDF from this book here.
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Peter Riley: The Day's Final Balance – Uncollected Writings 1965-2006
Published 2007. Paperback, 212pp, 8.5x5.5ins, £11.95 / $20.
ISBN 9781905700097
The subtitle says it all: here are numerous stray publications and lost poems, and prose-poems from throughout the author's career. Amongst many other works, the collection includes the previously unpublished sixth part of the long poem 'Alstonefield'.
Download a sample PDF from this book here.
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Peter Riley: Greek Passages
Published
July 2009. Paperback, 128pp, 8x5ins, £9.95 / $17
ISBN 9781848610514
Greek Passages is a set of 105 prose-poems derived from four sojourns in Greece, mostly in the vicinity of Argos and thus at the hub of early Greek power. The structure is entirely diurnal, building each poem from the day’s events, so that cognizance of monumental historical figures and events infiltrate from outside into notes of fauna, ruins, the news, books about Greece or not, American music listened to, pleasant dinners, dreams of northern England etcetera. Two shorter stays on the west coast of the Peloponnese furnish beginning and ending sections of a gentler, more lyrical cast, and there are interruptive excursions, mostly to the remains of cities and wars. Everywhere what is presented to the eyes is the starting-point for a poetical process creating lenses in location and sense.
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