Bad drivers, sweaty tourists, unnecessary inspections — is travel worth the bother? Or are the irritations actually part of the adventure? A dozen of the world’s best current poets offer differing views of the ups and downs of going abroad.
Travels and Travails Poems of going abroad Amit Majmudar, Marilyn L. Taylor, Mike Cooper, Anthony Lombardy, Jean L. Kreiling, Ed Shacklee, Max Gutmann, Julia Griffin, D.A. Prince, John Beaton, A.E. Stallings, Tom Vaughan Published August 2021 Series Editor Robin Helweg-Larsen Illustrated by Alban Low ISBN 978-1-912960-84-2 A6 Size 16 printed pages Colour Potcake Chapbook 10 SLB197 Print run of 250 Price – £2.60 BUY Travels and Travails to a UK address (£2.60 + £1.20 P&P) BUY Travels and Travails to a non-UK address (£2.60 + £2.20 P&P)
The “Potcake Chapbook” series is named for the dogs of the Bahamas and the Caribbean – strays that live off the burnt scrapings of cooking pots. The poems in the series are a mixed bunch – but the potcake of our logo wears a bow tie to show that he and all the poems are formal. These poems are memorable in part because they rhyme and scan, as all truly memorable poetry does. We subscribe to the use of form, no matter how formless the times in which we live.
A unique epistolary poetry collection and a collaborative feat of rare acumen, Flowers Won’t Grow contemplates mundanity and gratitude with a mix of polite curiosity and tender contempt. The lettered, prose-ish poems of Sandhu and Fowler speak to a luminous private public exchange, and the writeable unspeakables of a long London summer. These are playful, complex poems, of a city, of soap and fizzy water, of a search for commonality in quiet, of paper birds and hardened workers.
Flowers Won’t Grow SJ Fowler & Karenjit Sandhu Published June 2021 ISBN 978-1-912960-70-5 A5 Size 40 printed pages Colour Cimera Series #5 SLB0183 Print run of 200 Price – £4.99
‘Exchanges, transfers and transferrals of intimacy and stark urgency – a work of posed questions, thumbed noses and drawn blood’. Eley Williams
‘This is a nurse’s attention on a knife edge. A pin-prick of address, a poem that says “let’s get out of here” to and about itself. Everything is external, but you can’t get outside, even if you don’t what to know what’s inside. It’s a hostile take over of mundane objects and day-to-day experience in a language that asks us to settle for fruit syrup but reaches beyond to the universe’ Prudence Bussey-Chamberlain
Karenjit Sandhu is a poet and artist. Her debut poetry collection young girls! is forthcoming with the 87 Press (2021). Karenjit’s poems appear in Judith: Women Making Visual Poetry (Timglaset Editions, 2021), Writing Utopia (Hesterglock Press, 2020) and Nemeses (HVTN Press, 2019). Her work has also appeared in Magma in collaboration with Ryan Ormonde (2020), as well as online at Digital Poetics (87 Press, 2020), Junction Box (2020) and DATABLEED (2019). Her performance work has led to collaborations with the Sir Denis Mahon Foundation, the Institute of Contemporary Arts, Flat Time House and Camden People’s Theatre (London), Arnolfini (Bristol) and Galerie Eric Dupont (Paris). Karenjit is one of the judges of the 2021 Streetcake Writing Prize. @k_ren_sandhu
SJ Fowler is a writer, poet and artist who lives in London. His writing has explored subjects as diverse as prescription drugs, films, fight sports, museums, prisons and animals and his work has been commissioned by Tate Modern, BBC Radio 3, Somerset House, Tate Britain, London Sinfonietta, Southbank Centre, National Centre for Writing, National Poetry Library, Science Museum and Liverpool Biennial amongst others. He’s been translated into 27 languages and produced collaborations with over 150 artists. He has pioneered the fields of performance literature, literary curation, visual, photo and fifilm poetry, collaborative poetry and Neuropoetics. ‘Flowers won’t grow’ is his 44th publication and the 17th to be collaborative. www.stevenjfowler.com
SLURPS is the utterly unique, bold and bountiful debut publication by poet-artist Patrick Cosgrove. A book of visual poetry that explores the colourful, haptic spaces between words, occasionally bumping into a few along the way. SLURPS are poems that like to feel what words feel, while mostly afraid of what they might say. A book of linguistic abstraction, gesture and pattern, sound and smell – this is organic poetry, full of the actual sucking sounds of everyday life.
Patrick Cosgrove is an artist and parent. His work often explores the boundaries between different artistic domains: visual art, sculpture, sound, lm, performance and poetry. Much of his practice has been, and continues to be, inspired by S. J Fowler’s Poem Brut project, for which he has frequently performed. patcosgroveart.wordpress.com
Slurps Patrick Cosgrove Published June 2021 ISBN 978-1-912960-67-5 A5 Size 36 printed pages Colour Poem Brut Series #1 SLB0180 Print run of 100 Price – £4.99 SOLD OUT
Poem Brut celebrates artistic creative writing and its relationship with neurobiology – embracing text and colour, space and time, handwriting, composition, abstraction, illustration, sound, mess and motion – affirming the possibilities of the page, the pen, the process, the performance and the voice in a computer age. It is a project that celebrates genuine authentic originality in poetry, without overt recourse to biographical context and identity, and resists a literature of control, neatness, poise and direct, didactic meaning.
Poem Brut has offered an alternative understanding of 21st century literature since 2017 and has formed a quiet movement in British, and global, poetry. Series edited by SJ Fowler.
A study of silence and light in articulate, minimal visual poetry, and an extraordinary debut from Berlin-based poet, artist, and translator Sylee Gore. Even Still is a concentrated exploration of the integrity of the image-word, beyond fragmentation, comprising three formally distinct but interdependent parts – staged sculptural objects, photo-poems, and asemic watercolours – brought together in a publication of remarkable poise and skill.
EVEN STILL Sylee Gore Published June 2021 ISBN 978-1-912960-82-8 A5 Size 36 printed pages Colour Poem Brut Series #2 SLB0195 Print run of 100 Price – £4.99 SOLD OUT
Poem Brut celebrates artistic creative writing and its relationship with neurobiology – embracing text and colour, space and time, handwriting, composition, abstraction, illustration, sound, mess and motion – affirming the possibilities of the page, the pen, the process, the performance and the voice in a computer age. It is a project that celebrates genuine authentic originality in poetry, without overt recourse to biographical context and identity, and resists a literature of control, neatness, poise and direct, didactic meaning.
Poem Brut has offered an alternative understanding of 21st century literature since 2017 and has formed a quiet movement in British, and global, poetry. Series edited by SJ Fowler.
Dream Red, the debut publication from poet Nina Fidry, is a remarkable collection of concrete and projective poems filled with abstract imagery and multi-lingual play. Experimenting with space, composition, font, text-size and mathematics, these remarkable poems create a series of elegant divisions, forcing the reader to think of what could be and/ or what they are there for.
DREAM RED Nina Fidry Published June 2021 ISBN 978-1-912960-83-5 A6 Size, 16 printed pages, Colour Print run of 200 Writers Centre Kingston Chapbook #14 SLB0196 Price – £2.60 BUY DREAM RED (£2.60 + £1.20 P&P to UK Address)
Designed to evidence the remarkable contemporary and innovative poetry being written by current and recent Kingston University Creative Writing students, this series of beautifully designed pamphlets each features a suite of poems, most often on one theme or in one style, by a solo author. The series mark the first publications of many poets who are very likely to be significant presences on the UK scene and beyond in the coming years. www.writerskingston.com
This anthology is published to coincide with the Urban Tree Festival in May 2021. During the pandemic, we all came to appreciate the nature that surrounds us. Trees in our parks, streets and front gardens have provided shade, shelter and a changing view. They have boosted our spirits and willingly offered us something to hug! In the Spring of 2021 the Museum of Walking invited people to put into writing their feelings about trees close to you, to submit a poem or a flash writing piece of 250 words (or under).
Canopy 2 An Anthology of Writing for the Urban Tree Festival 2021 Gabriel Burrow, Alison Clark, Georgia Cook, Chris Cuninghame, Charis Fox, Sandra Horn, Peter Isaacson, Sarah McPherson, Tom Raw, E. E. Rhodes, Robert Seatter, Andrew Simms, Rachel Sloan and Sarah Wheeler. Published May 2021 ISBN 978-1-912960-69-9 A6 Size 28 printed pages Colour Museum of Walking Chapbook 8 SLB0182 Print run of 250 Price – £3.99 BUY Canopy 2 (£3.99 + £1.20 P&P)
The winning poems were judged by Dr Samantha Walton (Reader in Modern Literature at Bath Spa University and a Board member of the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment) and Ghazal Mosadeq (founder of Pamenar Press, an independent cross-cultural, multi-lingual publisher based in UK, Canada and Iran). The winning stories were judged by N. G. Bristow (screen writer, director and installation artist running the MA in Directing Fiction at Goldsmiths, University of London) and Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone (author, editor and tutor on the Novel Studio at City, University of London).
Robots stagger from oil bars Back to ships to cast off, Headed out to Mars and stars… Three, two, one — and blast off!
Robots and Rockets Poems of Science Fiction Geoffrey A. Landis, Juleigh Howard-Hobson, Robert Laughlin, Robin Helweg-Larsen, Bruce McGuffin, Maryann Corbett, Nina Parmenter, F.J. Bergmann, Marcus Bales, A.E. Stallings, Julia Griffin and Martin Elster Published April 2021 Series Editor Robin Helweg-Larsen Illustrated by Alban Low ISBN 978-1-912960-68-2 A6 Size 16 printed pages Colour Potcake Chapbook 9 SLB181 Print run of 250 Price – £2.60 BUY Robots and Rockets to a UK address (£2.60 + £1.20 P&P) BUY Robots and Rockets to a non-UK address (£2.60 + £2.20 P&P)
The “Potcake Chapbook” series is named for the dogs of the Bahamas and the Caribbean – strays that live off the burnt scrapings of cooking pots. The poems in the series are a mixed bunch – but the potcake of our logo wears a bow tie to show that he and all the poems are formal. These poems are memorable in part because they rhyme and scan, as all truly memorable poetry does. We subscribe to the use of form, no matter how formless the times in which we live.
“The idea for this book, and those to follow, came about when my brother was diagnosed with what was to be a short terminal illness. It was one of those times in life where there was very little I could do to help, and yet I wanted him to feel my love and support. So I collected together photos I’d taken and paired them with a mindful word to produce a small book. My intention was to provide him with a creative resource as he faced such uncertainty in his life. And to let him know I was holding him in mind at times when I couldn’t physically be there with him. Sadly, his cancer progressed so rapidly, he never saw the book.” Amanda McLellan 7daybooks.co.uk
‘7 Days of Being’ came about to explore the essence of ‘being’. The book is simply a suggestion. By using the images and words, can they resource you in to truly ‘being’ instead of ‘doing’? Can they connect you with breath so you can be most present in your life? Do they help you feel more relaxed and aware? Can they go some way to easing and improving anxiety and depression? Can they make you smile?
7 Days of Being Mindful images for wellbeing Amanda McLellan Published March 2021 ISBN 9781912960668 Typography by Stephen Hand A6 Size 16 printed pages Colour Chapbook 44 SLB0179 Print run of 100 Price – £2.60 BUY 7 Days of Being (£2.60 + £1.20 P&P)
The boldest take on photopoetry and corvids of the last decade, Crowfinger is a book that offers more than meets the eye. Juxtaposing Torgersen’s candid and striking photographs of Norwegian forests with Fowler’s precise and unrelenting poetry, it comes at you like evening fog between the trees. The poems see you before you see them, and unless you’re careful they’ll lure you off the path. It is lucky then that Crowfinger is here to guide you home. Because you may not know Crowfinger, but Crowfinger sure knows you.
Crowfinger SJ Fowler and Bård Torgersen Published December 2020 ISBN 978-1-912960-65-1 A5 Size 36 printed pages Colour Cimera Series #4 SLB0178 Print run of 200 Price – £4.99 BUY Crowfinger (£4.99 + £2.20 P & P)
“This is menacing and funny and antic and accusatory and gorgeous and just the best kind of collaboration. It gives us a new way into ekphrasis and a new maze to lose ourselves in. Were you having beautiful thoughts in the beautiful place? Can you just be f*cking honest for once in your life?” Luke Kennard, poet
“The only thing I could compare this book to is going for a run in the forest in the middle of the night. Surrounded by pitch black you hurtle yourself into a little pocket of light whilst trying your best to ignore whatever it is that’s watching you from the shadows. I’m not sure if I read the book or the book read me.” Mikael Buck, photographer
A house, or a flat or apartment–we move in with expectations, hopes and dreams… we live with realities, difficulties, problems… and we look back and reflect on it with nostalgia, gratitude. A home is part of who we are.
Houses and Homes Forever Poems of where we live Marcus Bales, A.E. Stallings, Jennifer Reeser, D A Prince, Kathy Lundy Derengowski, Kate Bernadette Benedict, Maryann Corbett, Ann Drysdale, Melissa Balmain, Nina Parmenter, Daniel Galef, Tom Vaughan Published December 2020 Series Editor Robin Helweg-Larsen Illustrated by Alban Low ISBN 978-1-912960-63-7 A6 Size 16 printed pages Colour Potcake Chapbook 8 SLB176 Print run of 250 Price – £2.60 BUY Houses and Homes Forever to a UK or European address (£2.60 + £1.20 P&P) BUY Houses and Homes Forever to a Worldwide address (£2.60 + £2.20 P&P)
The “Potcake Chapbook” series is named for the dogs of the Bahamas and the Caribbean – strays that live off the burnt scrapings of cooking pots. The poems in the series are a mixed bunch – but the potcake of our logo wears a bow tie to show that he and all the poems are formal. These poems are memorable in part because they rhyme and scan, as all truly memorable poetry does. We subscribe to the use of form, no matter how formless the times in which we live.
Sampson Low 