Peter Robinson: Talk about Poetry — Conversations on the Art Click on covers for more information.
Published
2006. Paperback, 148pp, 9x6ins, £9.95 / $17.
ISBN 9781905700042
Talk about Poetry is made up of twelve interviews, conducted over the last decade or so for hard-to-find print and internet journals, in which Peter Robinson discusses such subjects as poetry and sexual violence, the balkanization of the art and ways to resist it, the techniques of poetry and how they engage with the circumstances of life, and the connections between his own poetry, literary criticism, translations, aphoristic writings, and ancillary work. He recalls the editing of Perfect Bound and Numbers, and the organization of the Cambridge Poetry Festival; he responds to criticism, praises fellow writers, has his doubts about some questions put to him, and much more besides. Talk about Poetry is not only a companion volume to The Salt Companion to Peter Robinson, published in June 2006, but also a reliably open-minded guide through the forest of poetry during the last thirty years. Download a sample of work from this book.
Maurice Scully: Tig
Published
June 2006. 102pp, paperback 8.5x5.5ins. £8.95 /
$15.
ISBN 9780907562962
Maurice Scully is one of Ireland's most original poets, and most unusual. All of his work over the past 25 years has been part of one enormous project, under the umbrella title Things That Happen, which is completed with the appearance of this volume, the final section of the whole work, and Sonata (the penultimate section, also published in 2006 by Reality Street Editions). A criss-crossing of languages and cultures, and the point at which the personal life of the author intersects with the public domain, Tig is an absorbing book in its own right, as well as being the summation of one of the most interesting projects in recent Irish writing. Download a sample of work from this book.
Janet Sutherland: Burning the Heartwood
Paperback
8x5ins, 86pp. £8.95 / $15.
ISBN 9780907562887
Burning the Heartwood is Janet Sutherland's debut collection, and marks the arrival of a talented new lyric voice, with a decided taste for the pastoral. Her arrival is somewhat delayed, as she first made a name as a poet in the 1980s, and was featured in the Paladin anthology, The New British Poetry, but she stopped writing in the 90s and only returned to it in the new century. Her work has been appearing regularly over the past two years in UK and US journals, both print and online. This volume covers both her earlier and her more recent work.
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Scott Thurston: Hold
Paperback.
116pp, 8.5x5.5. £8.95 / $15
ISBN 9780907562832
Hold is Scott Thurston's first book-length collection, and covers ten years of work, which have for some time now needed collecting. This is work which owes a lot to the tradition of innovative and experimental poetry in Britain and the USA, but which also sends out feelers in other directions. A radical but communicative poetry.
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Gael Turnbull: There are Words: Collected Poems
Paperback.
496pp, 9x6ins. £18.95 / $30
ISBN 9780907562894.
Gael Turnbull—poet, doctor, performer and morris-dancer—was for many years a transatlantic poetic nexus in the UK, both through his own work, and through his pioneering Migrant Press, founded in 1957, an early outlet for figures such as Roy Fisher and Edward Dorn. This Collected gathers almost all of Gael Turnbull’s published poetry as well as a selection of uncollected and unpublished works.
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César Vallejo: Selected Poems
Translated & edited
by Michael Smith & Valentino Gianuzzi
Paperback, 132pp, 8.5x 5.5ins, £9.95 / $17.
ISBN 9780907562993
In September 2005, Shearsman Books published the astonishing new translations of Vallejo's Trilce and Complete Poems 1923-1938, edited and translated by Valentino Gianuzzi and Michael Smith. This Selected fills an important gap on the bookshelves by making available a rigorously-edited bilingual selection of Vallejo's work, which draws on the two earlier Shearsman volumes as well as a group of poems from Vallejo's first publication, The Black Heralds, itself a fascinating work which demonstrates where his astonishing art came from, and what boundaries he had to cross in order to achieve the heights marked by Trilce. Shearsman Books publishes the complete Black Heralds in 2007, together with some uncollected poems from the pre-Trilce period.