Wednesday, 12 September 2012

tickling ticklish trout farm hands

Saturday, 8 September 2012

Poets Live


Poets Live is pleased to announce its first reading of the 2012/13 season this coming Tuesday, September 11th at Carr's Pub (1 rue du Mont Thabor, 75001 Paris).  The evening will begin at 19h and will feature three poets, Kate Noakes, David Barnes and Gareth Storey.  More details on the three poets below, and more details on the reading series at the Poets Live website: http://poets-live.com/


Kate Noakes is an elected member of the Welsh Academi. Her most recent collection is Cape Town  which will be published by Eyewear Publishing (London) on 1 October 2012. Her previous collections are The Wall Menders (Two Rivers Press, 2009) and Ocean to Interior (Mighty Erudite, 2007). Kate has a MPhil in Creative Writing and has taught for Oxford University. She has performed at venues as diverse as Glastonbury Festival and Henley Literature Festival. She has lived in Paris since 2011.

David Barnes was born in 1971 in Reading, England and studied American Studies at Manchester University. Since 2003 he has lived in Paris where he runs writing workshops and the very successful English poetry open mike he founded, SpokenWord Paris. He co-edited the anthology Strangers in Paris: New Writing Inspired by the City of Light (Tightrope Books, 2011) and self-publishes Issue.Zero Lit Journal featuring many poets from SpokenWord Paris. He won Shakespeare & Company's short story competition in 2006. His poems have been published in Spot Lit Magazine, 39th Parallel, Upstairs At Duroc and elsewhere.

Gareth Eoin Storey has been scribbling in notebooks since adolescence throwing various influences into the stockpot of his head. As much inspired by ol' dirty bastard as William Carlos Williams, and the usual: 1970s cinema, heavyweight boxing, Picasso, the black dog, misplaced meringues...His work has been published in horror sleaze trash, the smoking poet, alternative reel and various other rags and next year his first collection Hangover House will be released by black coffee press in Detroit. He loves Giulia and Fernet Branca.  
http://poets-live.com/

Monday, 3 September 2012

Sea Pie

I have just received a copy of the anthology, Sea Pie, which is published by Shearsman Books.  This book is a selection of work that originally appeared in pamphlets from Oystercatcher Press, the Norfolk-based poetry press that won the inaugural Michael Marks Award.  A poem of mine from my pamphlet, Make Nothing Happen, is included and (despite this fact) the overall quality of the anthology is extremely high.  Stylistically and thematically it is also extremely varied, supporting what Oystercatcher's editor Peter Hughes says in his introduction: "'schools' are best reserved for children, fundamentalists and whales".  I would highly recommend picking up a copy.

And in case you are curious about the name, Sea Pie is both an old name for the oystercatcher and also a kind of layered meat and fish pie which is known to have been served to sailors in the 18th Century.  A similar pie exists in Quebec where it is variously referred to as cipaille, cipâtes or six-pâtes.

Wednesday, 29 August 2012

in bed, an abstraction
cups us and the wind,
which had been hidden,
buttons loose and cuts

it is four fifteen or so,
I would have thought,
had thinking not been
last year's baby's baby

Sunday, 26 August 2012

A farewell to nth

After three years editing the poetry section of the journal nthposition I am stepping down to make way for a new editor, Laura Bottomley.  Many thanks to my predecessor, Todd Swift, and to nthposition's General Editor, Val Stevenson, for giving me the opportunity to edit one of the UK's liveliest poetry venues and thanks also to all of you who submitted work during this period.  It has been a pleasure.

For those wishing to submit their work, details on how to contact Laura can be found here.

Tuesday, 14 August 2012

Monday, 13 August 2012

cheap wine head